Over 20 members of Unite in ESB’s Engineering and Major Projects business unit, will begin a ban on non-emergency work outside of normal hours. The decision follows a unanimous ballot for industrial action in pursuit of fair overtime pay.
The engineers have responsibility for the frontline commissioning and maintenance of critical high voltage infrastructure, essential to the safe and reliable operation of the electricity network. Many of the engineers are on lower base pay than workers they work alongside and who are all entitled to premium overtime rates.
The industrial action will have a significant impact on the delivery of maintenance work programmes during a particularly busy period.
The industrial action will be continuous from 17:00 today (Wednesday 15 July).
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “All workers, deserve a fair days pay. It is appalling that workers are being denied a decent rate for overtime work.
“It beggars belief that a publicly owned utility has for years frustrated our members’ efforts to resolve this injustice.”
The engineers are not paid a standard overtime rate but are eligible for a substandard, legacy ‘excess hours’ allowance with various threshold conditions attached which can result in work being unpaid.
The allowance was frozen from 2001 until 2025 when a modest increase was applied which failed to overcome the effects of the prior 24 year pay suppression. Despite this, ESB management is insisting that it can only increase at the same percentage as other allowances negotiated nationally every three years.
Unite regional officer Michael O’Brien said: “Our members have been left with no alternative but to pursue industrial action. ESB management needs to deliver an outcome that give these workers basic pay fairness.”
“The action will inevitably result in severe disruption to the electrical network but the ESB has brought this on itself. It has had every opportunity to resolve this dispute and end the injustice but has failed to do so.
“At a belated conciliation session yesterday the company failed to make a sufficient offer to settle this dispute.”
