Employers must come to table or risk prolonging dispute

Unite members working for employers who are members of the Mechanical Engineering & Building Services Contractors’ Association (MEBSCA) are set to down tools tomorrow as they continue fighting to secure the reversal of the austerity-era cut to ‘travel time’. 

Pickets will be mounted from 0.01 am to 11.59 pm tomorrow (Monday 14 October) outside the Pfizer project in Grangecastle (Clondalkin), where MEBSCA employers are carrying out works.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “MEBSCA employers can easily afford to reverse the shameful austerity-era cut to ‘travel time’. Our members will continue to receive their union’s unstinting support in this fight”.

In August Unite mechanical members voted overwhelmingly for industrial action in pursuit of restoration of the first hour of ‘travel time’, which was cut in the wake of the 2008 financial crash. To date MEBSCA and its parent organisation, the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), have refused to engage meaningfully with the workers’ demands.

Unite regional officer James McCabe said: “MEBSCA employers know what they have to do to avoid further prolonging this dispute: come to the table and make our members a meaningful offer”.