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LAST UPDATE | 27 Sep 2024
STRIKING PLUMBERS, FITTERS, welders and apprentices are mounting a picket outside the site of the National Children’s Hospital.
It’s the fourth day of strike action, which have involved official pickets being placed on large construction sites where members of the Mechanical Engineering & Building Services Contractors’ Association (MEBSCA) are carrying out works.
Further strike action is planned for next month.
It comes after Unite trade union members voted overwhelmingly last month 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 said it has been contacted by MEBSCA this week, and that while it welcomes this approach, the strike action would still go ahead as planned today.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “It is thanks to the determined action of Unite members over the past three weeks that MEBSCA has made contact.
“But the employers need to remember that making contact is a long way from resolving this dispute.
“This is a highly profitable sector, and our members will continue to have Unite’s unstinting support as they fight to have the first hour of ‘travel time’ restored.”
Meanwhile, Unite Regional officer James McCabe said the trade union is “always prepared to talk where there is a basis for meaningful engagement”.
“Our focus is on ensuring that workers win back the travel time payment cut over a decade ago. The employers can well afford to meet our members’ demands,” he added.
MEBSCA 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 today, 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: “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”.
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We have the other extreme here. Damned if do. Damned if you don’t. The fact is heroin destroys families. They should of thought of that when selling the horrible stuff.
You’ll find that the majority, if not all, these inmates have come from broken homes and deprived communities where they sold drugs to survive. It’s nasty and yes they were part of the cycle that they themselves were trapped in but Obama is acknowledging that solution involve them; much in the same way Mo Molam knew the peace process in NI had to involve inmates in British prisons.
Why is Obama doing this at the end of his term instead of at the beginning? The US prison population stands at over 2million. That’s more than China has incarcerated. It’s almost 2.5 times more than Russia has in prison.
the vast majority of prisons in the US are privately owned, run foe profit and care more about the bottom line than society. barry is an actor..reading off a script and being told what to do, as badly as drugs have messed up parts of society unpunished white collar crime and the burden it has put on society has damaged it a lot more.
in america there is a prison industrial complex,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,thats the problem.
here there are yobos with 17 previous convictions walking free and committing more serious crimes because the justice system is far to lenient on them. the legal system does not mind, its a big cash cow for them.
Obama is a good actor and that’s all. It is well established fact that since he took office his administration has refused more freedom of information requests than other other administration in US history. And if he gave two shits about ‘non-violent crimes’ then he’d have long arranged for Snowden to come home and would have intervened in the Bradley Manning case as he could have done at any time.
He’s a liar, and has done nothing but further liberalise US laws (which is why most of these guys are in prison in the first place).
Hilary Clinton is far worse than he and if she makes it in it’s bye bye US.
OK idiot. Restored pride to US after years of Bush’s wrath. A true statesman. Agree with you about Hillary though. I hope Sanders wins
Try making a point like an adult and I might respond to you. Other than that. Take a hike.
you just replied to him.
My heart is bleeding purple piss reading the sob stories.
If anything our Judiciary here could learn a thing or two from US Judges about sentencing and the whole US legal system.
Instead of having Solicitors and Barristers they have just one set Lawyers who deal with your case from start to finish. Where there is a dedicated Prosecution Service staffed by full time Prosecution Lawyers and a dedicated Public Defenders Office staffed with full time Defence Lawyers for those that would normally get free legal aid here. And then Private Legal Firms for those that can afford them.
Yes because there is so little crime in the US compared to Ireland.
Funny how you, a prison officer, propose following almost every part of the US save the mass privatization of prisons, wonder why that could be, oh right, self interest.
Wari.
Simply because Privatised Prisons have been shown time and time again to be an utter disaster in terms of security and staff safety. One only has to look at our nearest neighbour to see just how much of a bad idea they are and why the rest of Europe are not following suit. In reality they actually cost the state more than those under Government control in the long term.
I’m all for criminals doing time for their crimes especially violent or sexual crime but some of the sentences for carrying a small amount of drugs are ridiculous. Check out the segment John Oliver did on it, it’s a real eye opener. When I think of the idiot I was as a teenager, I would hate to go to jail for 15 years because of being on idiot.
I didn’t deal drugs! lol
If the sale of illegal substances was legalised and regulated then a lot of these places would see a massive reduction in crime as the people relying on the drug trade to make a living would be forced into tax-paying, gainful employment as they could not compete with a well regulated, safe industry. Also, not only would we gain the tax from the legal sale of drugs, it would be much easier to ensure the quality and safety of such substances as they could be tested in proper labs before being passed onto the public. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the head in the sand approach just doesn’t work. As long as there is a clear demand for drugs, there will always be people willing to risk everything to meet that demand for massive tax free profits.
In fact the Americans have the right idea here. Conspiracy to distribute heroin is no small crime. In my opinion 15 years is entirely appropriate. Crime must be punished harshly or we are all doomed.
They should do more about guns than 1000 year prison terms
How about maybe not dealing heroin. Heroin is a violent drug as is most other drugs. And yes that includes Weed. So just because the initial deal was violent… what we should let them away. The Americans have the right way. Full length senences for federal offences. If we could adopt there legal court room system this country would be a hell of a lot better off.
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have your say