TEEU will only defer dispute if employers to negotiate settlement before Monday deadline July 3rd, 2009. Detailed preparations have been taking place for Monday’s national strike by Technical Engineering and Electrical Union members in the electrical contracting industry. This follows the failure of the Labour Relations Commission to establish a basis for negotiations with the employers yesterday. The union has served strike notice on behalf of 10,500 members in the electrical contracting industry for July 6th. If it goes ahead the strike will significantly affect the energy, manufacturing, construction, aviation and other sectors of the economy. TEEU General Secretary Designate Eamon Devoy said today, “We have tried on no less than four separate occasions to negotiate with the employers on the basis of terms of reference proposed by the Labour Court and we are not prepared to defer any longer. Our members have shown extreme patience in waiting for a pay increase agreed by the main employer bodies in April 2008 and have not received a single penny, although clients of those same companies were being billed on the basis of that increase being applied. “We have a tried and tested analogue process for setting rates for the industry using rates in comparable employments across a wide range of companies and sectors. Far from putting our members’ wage rates ahead of other sectors, as the employers suggest, this system means our members’ increases constantly run behind rates elsewhere. That is why their current rates reflect the earnings of comparable workers three years ago. “Employer bodies would be far better off making a serious effort to negotiate a settlement of this dispute than engaging in a deliberate campaign of misinformation to confuse the public. It is in their interests, as well as ours, to maintain high standards in electrical contracting rather than allow themselves to led down the road of competition based on low pay rates, low skill levels and the erosion of safety, training and quality standards. “It is no accident that those elements most active in promoting this campaign against the TEEU have also featured prominently in prosecutions undertaken by NERA for breaches of employment law and for failing to pass on workers’ contributions or indeed to pay their own contributions to occupational pension schemes. Some of those most opposed to negotiating a settlement also seem to be taking their lead from Tom Parlon, a former aspiring leader of the PDs who is continuing to parrot its bankrupt policies from his new gilded perch as chief executive of the Construction Industry Federation.”