Over one hundred construction workers protested outside the Department of Justice yesterday over the failure of some building firms to pay mandatory pension contributions for their staff.
The SIPTU members called for the jailing of employers who fail to pay the contributions to the Construction Industry Federation (CIF).
However, the CIF said it did not understand why the protest was held yesterday, when talks on the scheme were due to get underway next week.
The SIPTU protest heard that widows were being deprived of mortality benefits because firms failed to register workers or make the proper contributions to the scheme.
In some cases, firms were deducting the contribution from employees' wages but were not passing the contributions on to the CIF.
"There is a definite culture among certain sectors of the building industry that it is acceptable and somehow okay to avoid paying into the pension scheme," said Mr Eric Fleming, SIPTU's Dublin construction branch secretary.
He said SIPTU would "name, shame and take action" against any employer in the industry not fulfilling their duties.
Mr Fleming said he knew of several high-profile construction accidents where it emerged afterwards that the workers' employers had not been making the contributions.
"The fraud is mainly perpetrated by employers refusing to register their employees; under-declaring the size of their workforce and registering only a handful of workers; making under-payments to the scheme and failing to hand over contributions deducted."
He called on the Minister for Justice, Mr McDowell to direct the Pensions Board to make an example of employers who were defrauding building workers by taking proceeding against them.
However, a spokeswoman for Mr McDowell said the matter had "nothing to do with the Department". It was an issue for the Department of Enterprise Trade and Employment, the Department of Social and Family Affairs and the Revenue Commissioners, she said.
Mr Terry McEvoy, director of industrial relations with the Construction Industry Federation said he was "frankly bewildered" by yesterday's protest as the CIF was meeting with unions next Monday on the issue of compliance.
He said the major improvements would soon be introduced in the pension scheme and the CIF was committed to improving compliance with the scheme.
"There has been a significant improvement in compliance in the last few years. It's not as big a problem as it once was," he said.
Between 80,000 and 90,000 workers were eligible for the scheme and about 58,000 of these were in the scheme, he said.
Mr McEvoy said there was no need to introduce new legislation as employers could already be referred to the Labour Court, and could eventually face legal action if they did not comply with the scheme.
