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IRISH CEMENT WORKERS have begun strike action at the company’s two production plants in Limerick and Meath in a dispute over what workers say is the company’s failure to honour a Labour Court recommendation.
Staff say the company has yet to pay them between €5,000 and €9,500 each, in line with a recommendation issued by the Labour Court over year.
Over 100 staff have downed tools and begun strike action, however, because the company has sought pay cuts of between 15 and 18 per cent before it proceeds to release the outstanding money to employees.
Karan O’Loughlin from the Irish Cement Group of Unions said acceptance of the pay cut was not part of the Labour Court recommendation, and that workers would maintain their industrial action until the money was released without precondition.
In a statement this afternoon the company said it was disappointed at the all-out strike action, insisting it had sought to engage with staff unions on what it called an “urgent need for reductions in pay rates, which include bonuses reflecting peak output levels”.
It said its current pay rates, which have been unchanged since 2008, are around 60 per cent higher than the average industrial wage, and had not been cut despite the slump in construction output.
“Pay rates are unsustainable and are impacting negatively on the competitiveness of the company in the markets in which it operates and also on its capacity to export,” the company said.
It added that the Labour Court had suggested a pay cut of 6 per cent for staff, but a union ballot had rejected the plan, and that it believed previous work-to-rule actions by unionised workers were “irresponsible”.
Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams urged the company to honour the Labour Court recommendation and release the outstanding funds.
“It is unfortunate that the Irish Cement Group of Unions which includes SIPTU, the TEEU and Unite has had to go to such lengths to secure the payment of monies which the workers are entitled to,” he said.
Adams said he had contacted jobs minister Richard Bruton to try and have the government use its influence to see that the Labour Court recommendations were followed.
Irish Cement is part of the CRH Group, a public company which recorded pre-tax profits of €711 million last year.
Big companies trying to screw workers for all they can get! €711 million profit last year, yet they’re complaining they’re not competitive!!! Shareholder greed again!
Irish Cement Limited has extracted its profits over the past few decades by over charging its customers and keeping the price of cement in Ireland artificially inflated.
CRH (Irish Cement’s parent company) has been found guilty on numerous occasions throughout Europe of price fixing and operating illegal cartels all to the detriment of consumers and taxpayers. Most recently in Poland in 2009 when it was fined €25 million for the above offences.
After the cement cartel was uncovered in Germany in 2003 prices decreased by over 50%. Imagine how much local authorities have been over charged for cement related products throughout the Celtic Tiger. CRH claimed an annual turnover of €18 billion in 2011. How much of that belongs to the Irish people?
Irish Cement Limited can well afford to pay its workers!
Irish cement workers in Platin (meath) were always very well payed. Before the tiger days it was one of the best jobs in the area and even through the tiger days. Have to say that through the years I’ve had the misfortune of working for subbies in platin and found most of the workers to be arrogant AS**oles. They never wanted subbies in their canteen, would not even look in your general direction. Not as if they were being done out of work, subbies had to do any dirty work as this was beneath them.
In their old sister plant, premier periclase in Drogheda, If a contractor brought a machine in, say a JCB, then premiers union insisted on one of their men standing beside the machine (not doing any work) as long as it was on the premises, as it was deemed to be doing a man out of work.
I for one have no sympathy for any of the (so called) workers in Platin.
They might find out what it’s like to have to work for a subbie and have dickheads looking down their noses at you
That was a long long time ago tom. Your rant seems to stem from a hint of jealousy. How many times did you apply and not get in i wonder? Icl have already slashed their wage bill in recent years by redundancies and early retirements. . That 100 people is across 2 plants remember. Go back 2 years and the numbers were 3 times that. The monies owed are for bonuses which they are quite entitled to considering the bankers are still getting them and the banks DONT make profits of over 700 million euro a year.
@Karl, not Jealousy, More that I was surprised at the arrogance and ignorance of the majority of the employee’s.
It’s not a rant either it is fact that subcontractors are used for any “dirty work” as this is seen as below any general operatives duties in direct employment.
They lived in a bubble for years, Jobs for life and being basically unsackable made work place snobs out of sadly the majority of them.
Not sure where you are coming from, but having dealt with them at all levels for many years now, I am very familar with their ways
so tom because you were mistreated by men that have long since left that place the current relatively young workforce deserve everything they get? your holding a bitter grudge. and yes you were indirectly doing people out of a fulltime job and thats why they treated ye like that. but that was a long time ago. you have no idea what it is like to work in in recent years. the “so called platin workers” you are talking about are fighting for money they are owed. mark o brien makes a point in the comments below. you should read it. platin was a good job and always looked after the surrounding towns and clubs. but thats all stopped now because of greedy executives. your still coming across as being bitter that you never got a job there.
Lucky to be alive with you around,
You big girls blouse!
They are bloody lucky to have jobs
For God’s sake, lucky to have jobs they are not getting paid for! Mong
This kind of wage slave mentality, taken to its logical conclusion would mean that we, the great unwashed, should be grateful to even be payed for the work we do for our social betters.
It’s a moronic and self-defeating stance to take.
Yet again. “You’re lucky to have a job”. So do as you’re told and take whatever’s coming to you. Dickensian nonsense.
What I would like to know is how many government projects CRH got during the Celtic tiger years and how many T.D.s had investments and vested interest in that company. These large corporations will continue to abuse their employees in the name of profit until the Workers of the world unite and take them down. The elites continue to get rich at the expense of the regular joe. It’s only a matter of time before this game comes to an ugly end. People were kept docile and content for the last twenty years or so with the utopia of cheap credit. This is no longer the case. Now that reality has dawned the masses have become very agitated and are asking questions. I believe some equality needs to return to society as a whole, otherwise we are heading down a very dangerous road. The elites might not like what they find if they continue these policies. The French revolution comes to mind. Just because we are in 2012 doesn’t mean that history can’t repeat itself. When human beings have nothing else to loose they do strange things.
Richard Bruton, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation is a former employee and current shareholder of CRH. He has refused outright to initiate an investigation into the anti-competitive practices occurring in the cement and concrete industry even though they are costing the State and consumers millions upon millions of euro. Richard Bruton is a very good example of a politician with vested interests which are to detriment of those he is supposed to represent!
On aggregate I reckon they have a fairly concrete case, however many old companies work practices are set in their ways, curing these workers grievances with a bit of flexibility by CRH might crack the issue and cement better future working relationships.
With the Worldwide economic boom I think they have a good case.
The reason subbies were not allowed into irish cement workers facilities was because some subbies were stuffing toilet roll down the toilets and flushing them so they overflowed and p*ss and s*hit went all over the floor. In your comment you neglected to mention that subbies were built brand new canteen facilities showers and toilet block but they refused to use them because they were “too far away”
What are they owed the money for?
Work I’d say
There is no 9500 euro bonus for anyone up there anymore thats gone years ago. Workers have already taken a 20% pay cut while management have not taken any pay cut. Workers have not recieved their production based bonus and management have. Workers have been made redundant (approx 65% of them) while no managers lost jobs. When they laid off their workers they took on contractors to do the work they claimed they didnt have for the workers they laid off. Running costs for the factory have been slashed they are being payed irish cement up to €40 per tonne to burn rubbish in the kilns thus saving €25 million on importing coal. Workers who were laid off or took redundancy last year got paid their bonuses up to the point of being laid off so the precedent is set on paying this bonus to the workers for last year. People should understand there are two sides to every story sometimes three. Never let the truth get in the way of a good story!!!!
This can get very messy… From the company’s point of view… If They don’t get pay cuts, then it’ll most likely be last in first out. Once they have it on the table that staff are costing “X” too much, then by hook or by crook that’s what’ll happen. Scary for those affected, but inevitable.
Regardless, If the labour court said the staff are owed money, that should be paid. Most likely a separate issue.
The key point here is that this is a profitable company looking for pay cuts. How can they possibly justify that? Another attempt to reduce the pay and conditions of workers in this country while shareholders (excluding those in the banks who got wiped when they were nationalised) the , bondholders and the high earners get rich off their backs.
The message from comments here seems to be this: unless workers are on subsistence wages, they should shut up and be grateful. Why do these people want to set back work conditions by a hundred years? Do they not realise such attitudes affect their own families, their children and their friends?
I’d be suspicious of these commenters’ motives. What’s in it for them?
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