STRIKING PLUMBERS, FITTERS, welders and apprentices will mount a picket outside the Intel project in Leixlip, Co Kildare tomorrow in a dispute over travel allowances.

Unite members will strike tomorrow outside the Intel site as they continue action 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 outside the Intel project where members of the Mechanical Engineering & Building Services Contractors’ Association (MEBSCA) are carrying out works. 

It follows a picket outside the site of the National Children’s Hospital late last month.

Unite trade union members voted overwhelmingly in August for industrial action in pursuit of restoration of the first hour of ‘travel time’.

Payment of the first hour of ‘travel time’ was cut as a temporary measure following the 2008 financial crash.

This was due to be reviewed after a year but Unite said that workers are still waiting over a decade later.

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said MEBSCA employers have “enjoyed a turnover bonanza while workers have seen their living standards fall over the past five years”.

Unite said a recent survey among members working for MEBSCA employers found that over 80% have seen their living standards fall over the past five years.

“MEBSCA bears direct responsibility for this dispute’s escalation,” said Graham.

“They can end it by coming to the table and negotiate a resolution to this dispute.”

Unite said it made an approach to MEBSCA last week and that “in the absence of meaningful engagement, Unite’s disputes committee has decided to escalate the action”.

A spokesperson for Unite said “pickets will be placed on selected large construction sites around the country on further dates in October”.

Unite Regional officer James McCabe said “employers should be in no doubt regarding our members’ determination to secure a reversal of the shameful cut to travel time”.

MEBSCA has previously said its members pay a travel allowance on top of pay and that they made an agreement with Unite in 2011, “which incorporated the first hour of travel into hourly rates”.

“This agreement had the effect of increasing the hourly rate which also resulted in a higher rate being paid for overtime and holidays,” MEBSCA added.

In a statement last month, MEBSCA called for an end to the picketing and said the strikes are “causing reputational damage to the sector, which will result in job losses”.

It added that “plumbers and fitters employed by MEBSCA members are the highest paid workers in the construction industry” and that “workers have seen their pay increase by over 26% since the agreement was reached to incorporate the first hour of travel into hourly rates”.

MEBSCA added that “no other union is seeking additional increases”.

A spokesperson added at the time: “Taking industrial action against MEBSCA member companies, whose employees enjoy higher rates of pay in addition to being paid travel allowances, will only result in contracts being awarded to non-MEBSCA members.”

The spokesperson also said that while there is a “long tradition of collective bargaining in the mechanical sector”, Unite has “stepped outside this process in pursuit of an unrealistic and unsustainable claim on travel time”.