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The Saker Indymedia Ireland is a volunteer-run non-commercial open publishing website for local and international news, opinion & analysis, press releases and events. Its main objective is to enable the public to participate in reporting and analysis of the news and other important events and aspects of our daily lives and thereby give a voice to people.
Public InquiryInterested in maladministration. Estd. 2005
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Owen Wills Exposed national |
worker & community struggles and protests |
opinion/analysis
 Tuesday December 02, 2008 02:05 by John McCoy
 TEEU General Secretary wastes taxpayers money while bashing self-employed Electrical Contractors Am I the only person in the Electrical Contracting Industry who is getting more and more annoyed at the double standards that are now being clearly exposed by the TEEU leadership? Mr Wills the general secretary of the Union is also a director of EPACE and FAS. The same Mr Wills who has a substantial annual salary from the Union also receives payments and expenses from Taxpayers Hard Earned money to attend 9 FAS Meetings per year. Now we find out that Mr Wills was the one of the lucky campers on the lavish trip to Orlando. Among the many questionable expenses on this trip, the taxpayer was stuck with the bill for renting 10 surfboards at the Cocoa Beach Resort Country Club. This was after spending €20k of taxpayer's funds on 3 airline tickets. Mr Wills spent over €600 per night of our money on his hotel for the trip and racked up a hotel bill of €3000. All this and much more information is available in the links to below. Of course we don't know how much Mr Wills gets from his involvement with the Limited company EPACE as they are accountable to no one. Looking at his track record one could assume that his EPACE involvement is not for the good of his health. Now maybe its just me folks but it sickens me to the backbone is the TEEU of which the same Mr Wills is General Secretary, is hauling Electrical Contractors into the Labour Court and nailing them to the cross for not complying with an illegal agreement that they were never part of. Mr Wills actions have caused great distress and hardship to ordinary people whose only crime is to employ people and attempt to make a decent living. This has contuined even when the legality of the agreement is being challenged. The Two minority employer body's in the Irish Electrical Contracting Sector have allowed to situation to arise where Employers are being totally beaten down by a trade union. This situation is crazy, and has only succeeded in encouraging the sub contract culture and given contractors a fear an employing people. Mr Owen Wills has stated "that he does not have to answer to an elected TD" and clearly needs to be taken down a peg. Mr Wills has been appointed to the advisory board of NERA(National Rights Employment Authority) where I am sure he will apply all his efforts to gaining statuary powers for his Electrical Contracting bashing machine the private limited company EPACE (Pensions and Conditions Electrical Limited) Its Time to stand up and be counted . If this guy gets his own way you all might as well shut the door and retire. http://www.independent.ie/business/irish/fas-bills-surfboards-to-taxpayer-1558305.html http://www.independent.ie/national-news/fas-board-not-answerable-to-labour-leader-1558911.html http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/fas-is-great-on-the-ground-rotten-at-the-top-1558279.html |
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Comments (7 of 7)
Jump To Comment: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7I am 100% in agreement with the position stated above. Owen Wills has abused taxpayers money and has to go. Please read the links below as he is named in every one of them.
Herald on Owen Wills
http://www.herald.ie/national-news/city-news/a-euro2400....html
Tribune on Owen Wills
http://www.tribune.ie/article/2008/nov/30/tour-de-fas-t...pree/
Shane Ross Blog on Owen Wills
http://www.shane-ross.ie/archives/442/first-blood-at-fo...-fas/
Irish Times and Eamonn Gilmore on Owen Wills
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2008/1129/1....html
Fine Gale on Owen Wills
http://www.finegael.ie/news/index.cfm/type/details/nkey...y/653
While I have sympathy for all workers in the construction industry at the moment, I don’t believe driving down wages is the answer. The "illegal agreement" set minimum standards that ensure a descent wage for all working in the industry.
Employers who pay good wages will be put out of business if the construction wage agreement is removed. How could they compete with employers who pay the minimum wage, with no pension or sick pay? In the long run, you reasoning will completely undermine workers in the industry; will skilled workers really stick around for low wages?
By the by, linking FAS expenses to the construction industry agreement is nothing more than mud slinging and undermines your argument.
The problem with the last comment is that the writer assumes that all construction workers and electricians are equal in the quality of their work, and also equal in the amount of actual work achieved each working day. This is far from the case. Some employees are able to complete tasks that others are just not good enough to go near.
Now as I see it, these Registered Employment Agreements do not allow an employer to reward his best performing employees because all the other employees will look for parity. Likewise there is no method for incentivsing the under performing employees.
The under performing employees (now lets all be honest, there are lots of them) can sit back and hide behind the protection of a Registered Employment Agreement. I am aware that a balance has to be struck but from where I see it all the cards are in the employees hand at the moment.
I think things are about to change very soon as the employers challenging these agreements could not have picked a better time to do so. Also employees in general are just glad to have a job in the current tough times.
Regarding the electrical situation, I think it’s clear that the 10% of employers who have had a say to date have not got themselves a good deal. The union has been stronger in the past and this fact is reflected in the good deal achieved by the union for employees. (electricians are paid 20% more than the tradesmen under the construction Registered Employment Agreement)
It was inevitable that the 90% who have been effectively forced to comply with an agreement they have no input into would at some point rise up and kick back. This kick back was even more inevitable when the union and other parties with the same agenda as the union started to strongly enforce the terms of the agreement.
I am of the opinion that these agreements are now doomed to failure. The unions cannot blame anyone but themselves as their unwillingness to vary any part of the agreements except the pay rates has partly led to the current situation.
See Construction Registered Employment Agreement pay rates here
http://www.labourcourt.ie/labour/labour.nsf/lookuppagel...OfPay
(Craftsmen / tradesmen €18.60)
See Electrical Registered Employment Agreement pay rates here
http://www.labourcourt.ie/labour/labour.nsf/lookuppagel...OfPay
(electricians €20.74)
Its quite obvious that Dan represents the William Martin Murphy school of employers. They want to destroy trade union rates of pay and conditions in the electrical industry.
They want to pay an employee what they reckon hes worth! Now that wouldnt be very much. What Dan and the other scabby employers want to do is get rid of the registerd rate in the industry and bring in non union workers from eastern Europe who will be paid peanuts.
Well that did not work for GAMA and it will not work for any employers who think they are going get involved to a race to the bottom with working conditions in the Electrical Industry.
Collective bargaining is the cornerstone of the Trade Union movement and a bunch of cowboy employers are not going to get rid of it.
And Tyranny trampled them in Dublin's gutter
Until Jim Larkin came along and cried
The call of Freedom and the call of Pride
And Slavery crept to its hands and knees
And Nineteen Thirteen cheered from out the utter
Degradation of their miseries.
Theres certainly a place for unions in our society. Workers do need a voice and unions seem to be the best way to facilitate that.
On the other hand, I think that the vast majority of unions are now deluded and drunk on power. Unions must realise that there are times when redundancys, pay cuts or changes in work practicies are necessary for the survival of the company/sector. Hard-line unions are doing their members and society at large a huge disservice by being so stubborn - these unions have utterly failed to realise that with a union comes a lot of responsibility.
I have conflicting (perhaps irreconcilable) outlooks on this wider picture. I believe that companys/etc should have the right to sack people if theyre dead weight or not productive without question. Companys are not an extension of the welfare state, no matter how much unions would like them to be. On the other hand, i also agree that workers need proper notice of redundancy with a decent redundancy package if at all possible. They should be 'guarenteed' their job (in as far as a company can guarentee a worker their job) if they do work hard and are an asset to the company.
Gama Gama and yet more Gama is the response of many to any question that the Electrical Registered Employment Agreement is flawed. The simple fact is that the terms of the REA were not agreed by the majority of employers it affects. It is also a fact that many employers were not even made aware the agreement in the first place.
No Irish company was involved in the Gama debacle. The workers were employed by ZRE Katowicz Construction. Quote from TEEU website
"Although ZRE Katowice (Ireland) Construction Limited is registered in Athlone it is a wholly owned subsidiary of ZRE Katowice SA, a large Polish construction company."
I for one am sick of Irish Electrical Contractors being put in the same box as these company’s who without question have not treated people fairly.
Following on from that, Have Irish workers treated their employers fairly and given 100% to their dutys while in work ?? . Many have been shown up by the work rates of east European employees.
You are supporting the interests of The Electrical Employers. I support the electricians. Let there be no mistake about it: you and your ilk are out to destroy the trade union movement. You want to rid of the registered agreemment int the Electrical Industry so that you can bring in non-union workers from Eastern Europe and pay them a pittance.