November 26th: Unite, the largest union in the ESB, today confirmed that it will be serving notice of industrial action on the ESB this coming Friday (November 29^th).  Commenting, Unite official Richie Browne said:

“I can confirm that Unite will be serving notice of industrial action on the ESB on Friday.   This is on foot of the overwhelming mandate for industrial action given by Unite members in the ballot which concluded last Monday.

“All the ESB has to do to resolve this situation is to reverse the unilateral changes to its accounting procedures which show the workers’ Defined Benefit pension scheme as a Defined Contribution arrangement, thus camouflaging the apparent deficit and allowing the company to shrug off responsibility for current and future deficits.

“It is now up to the ESB to honour its agreement with workers, reverse the unilateral accounting changes and avert industrial action”, Mr Browne concluded.