Reputations are at stake in the row over pay levels at Gama Construction Ireland, writes Chris Dooley, Industry and Employment Correspondent
A curious thing happened when executives from Gama Construction were signing the company's first major Irish contract - to build the Huntstown power station in Dublin - in November 2000. As the Ts were being crossed and the Is dotted on the multi-million-pound contract, gardaí from the National Immigration Bureau (GNIB) paid an unexpected visit to the office where the signing was taking place.
The sharp-suited Turkish businessmen from Gama were surprised to be asked for documentation showing that their presence in Ireland was in order. After all, they were in the country at the invitation of the Tánaiste and then minister for enterprise, trade and employment, Mary Harney, who had led a trade delegation to Turkey a short time before. The mission was one of several undertaken by Harney in that period to attract international construction companies to Ireland to help ensure delivery of the 1999 National Development Plan.
Gama, already an international player with more than 10,000 employees in Europe, the Middle East and Asia, was one of those to answer the call. Since then, its Irish subsidiary, Gama Construction Ireland, has landed a number of sought-after projects, including power plants, major road developments and local authority housing estates.
It has 1,000-plus employees, a third of whom are Irish and two-thirds Turkish, all of them members of trade unions. And if people agree on one thing about Gama, it is that the quality of its work is not in question.
What, then, provoked Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins to make sensational allegations against this reputable international company in the Dáil this week? Gama, he claimed, makes its Turkish employees work "grotesque" hours and "incredibly, pays unskilled construction workers between €2 and €3 per hour basic pay and skilled workers somewhere over €3 an hour". It was, he said, a "major scandal of immigrant worker exploitation of massive proportions".
On Thursday, Higgins and his Socialist Party colleague, Tallaght-based councillor Mick Murphy, called to the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment to make a formal complaint. An investigation by the department's labour inspectorate is to begin immediately and has been welcomed by the company.
The immediate events that led to Higgins's dramatic statement began with a highly publicised incident in November when three workers on a Gama Construction site in Dublin occupied a crane to protest about non-payment of three weeks' wages by a third party. The three are members of the Building and Allied Trades' Union (BATU), which has had a few run-ins with Gama over the years. They were employed at the site in Balgaddy, Co Dublin, not by Gama, but by a sub-contractor. Both the High Court and the Labour Court upheld Gama's contention that it was not the men's employer.
Following the incident, however, Murphy began making inquiries about the company. He distributed a flyer at the site, seeking information from workers about Gama's payment rates and other conditions of employment. He also wrote several letters to the company seeking similar information, and received replies.
Murphy passed the results of his research to Higgins, who felt sufficient evidence had been gathered for him to denounce the company in the Dáil.
It was not the first time, however, that Gama had been on the receiving end of such accusations. An investigation by the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment took place two years ago on foot of a complaint believed to be have been made by BATU members. It concluded that the complaint was without substance and that Gama was meeting all of its legal obligations towards its staff.
Inquiries made by several trade unions at various times have failed to turn up any evidence of wrongdoing. All the company's Turkish general operatives are members of SIPTU. Its Dublin construction branch secretary, Eric Fleming, says none of them has ever complained to the union about Gama.
When Gama arrived in Ireland, he explains, it seemed to think "it could operate in a vacuum". After meetings with SIPTU and other unions, however, it recognised that it would have to deal with unions and offered assurances that legally binding building-sector agreements on pay and other conditions would be honoured. SIPTU now has shop stewards at every Gama site and has "regular dealings" with the company on industrial relations issues, he says.
Fergus Whelan, a senior officer with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, also held meetings with the company, attended by several construction unions. "They have consistently assured us that they pay the registered employment rates for the building industry and treat their entire workforce properly," he says. While there has been no evidence to the contrary to date, Whelan welcomes the investigation which is now to take place. "Obviously, if there are doubts or allegations still there, it is important that the labour inspectorate investigates," he says.
Even BATU, the union whose members have made most noise about Gama over the years, readily concedes that it has encountered no difficulty with the company regarding its own members. "We have been doing good business with Gama," says the union's general secretary, Paddy O'Shaughnessy. "They pay the appropriate rates and stick to agreements."
Given that, according to another informed source, some BATU members earn more than €100,000 a year as bricklayers for Gama, the union's stance is not surprising.
It is not just the unions, however, who will be watching the outcome of the department's investigation with interest. Rival building companies have long been concerned about Gama's apparent ability to underbid them by substantial amounts for major public contracts.
For example, Gama won the Ballincollig bypass contract in 2001, with a £56 million (€71 million) bid that was £12 million (€15 million) lower than the nearest Irish bid. More recently, it was €5 million below the next lowest bidder for the €120 million Ennis bypass project. Given that the quality of its work is not in question, industry sources wonder aloud how Gama manages to keep its costs low enough to make such bids sustainable.
A company spokeswoman, however, says it is simply not true that Gama is routinely undercutting competitors. It was successful with just two of 21 bids it submitted for contracts last year, she points out.
Although Gama is now well- established in Ireland and has been a member of the Construction Industry Federation since 2003, its arrival was not uniformly welcomed by either unions or other builders. This is one reason why the company's executives wonder about that GNIB raid five years ago. Were the complaints being made before it had hired a single worker or laid its first block?
If Gama has indeed been the victim of prejudice, the department investigation should, as the company hopes, clear its name "for once and for all".
Higgins says he is convinced, however, that his allegations will stand up. The evidence he produced this week - handwritten payslips with no names, which the company says are not authentic - were certainly not enough to prove his case.
The Dublin West TD will be acutely aware that his own reputation - and not just that of Gama Construction - is at stake as the department's inspectors begin their work.