A pay claim amounting to about £37.5 million for 8,500 workers was lodged by the ESB group of unions yesterday during a two-hour hearing before the Joint Industrial Council, the electricity board's internal arbitration body. The process is now expected to take several months before the council decides on the claim which amounts to a per capita payment of about £4,400 for 1997 and 1998, based on the profit the semi-state company made in this two-year period.
The ESB made an after-tax profit of £160 million in 1997, and will publish its figures for 1998 later this year.
The pay claim is being rejected by management because it says it is in contravention of the Partnership 2000 agreement.
At yesterday's hearing, submissions were made by Mr Paddy Reilly, the secretary of the ESB group of unions, and, for the management, by Mr Gerry McAleavey, a senior human resources official. Included in the group of unions are SIPTU, ATGWU, AEEU, TEEU, ESBOA and MSF. The claim being made by the workers amounts to 12.5 per cent of the aggregate profits for the two-year period.
Mr Tony Dunne, SIPTU's energy branch secretary, said the 12.5 per cent figure was arrived at as a median figure, based on bonus payments made to management which range between 5 per cent and 20 per cent of salaries.
"If the company was not making profits, we would not be making the claim," he said. The claim was separate to the profit-sharing scheme arrived at during the Cost and Competitiveness Review (CCR), which will award employees up to 5 per cent of profits from January 1st, when the ESB is made a public company. "There are bonuses and payments made to management in there which are over and above anything that is being made in the CCR," Mr Dunne said.
An ESB company spokesman, Mr Michael Kelly, said that because the matter had gone to internal procedures, no further comment would be appropriate.
The company has stated that the claim is a cost-increasing measure and is not allowed under Partnership 2000.
But Mr Dunne added that the ESB had been "keen" to say that the 5-per-cent CRC award was not a cost-increasing claim.
Yesterday's hearing was chaired by Mr Kieran McGovern. The other council members are Mr Pat Mayne and Mr Sean O'Driscoll, representing the management, Mr John Nugent, representing the officer staff, and Mr Paddy Dunne, for the general workers.