Striking lift engineers are expected to meet this morning to consider proposals to restore lift services in Dublin's high-rise Ballymun flats complex. Their union, the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union, decided to call the meeting after the Supreme Court directed Dublin Corporation yesterday to take "all reasonable steps within its power and authority" to repair Ballymun lifts.
A corporation spokesman said yesterday that even with the Supreme Court order there was little that could be done without the co-operation of the striking workers and their employers. The work was too highly specialised to be done by the Army or general contractors.
At present in Ballymun, only 13 of 73 lifts servicing 2,500 tenants and their families operate. The vandalising of lifts in Ballymun has aggravated the problem.
The TEEU is providing emergency cover free to hospitals and other essential services, but the scope of this cover has been severely limited by the failure of the union and the employers to agree how it should operate. Management personnel from the companies have also been providing a limited maintenance service to commercial clients.
In a new effort to resolve the dispute, the Labour Court has called both sides in for talks this afternoon. Last March the court awarded the lift engineers significant increases in basic pay, but much of the benefit was negated by "clawbacks" of allowances.
The TEEU assistant general secretary, Mr Dan Miller, said yesterday the overall package meant some of his members' net earnings would fall by about £125 a year if they had accepted the Labour Court proposals. He said the companies had adopted an intransigent approach since his members had rejected the Labour Court proposals.
He accused them of increasing prices to clients by as much as 12.5 per cent since last January on the basis that lift engineers would be winning pay rises worth at least 13 per cent, including retrospection to the previous October. The companies were now collecting the price increase while denying his members a decent pay rise.
The senior IBEC negotiator for the companies, Mr John Doherty, rejected the union's claims. He said the Labour Court award represented a significant pay increase for most lift engineers. He believed the strike had no justification under Partnership 2000. Nevertheless, IBEC would be attending the Labour Court today.