EAC staff plan warning strike

TWO-THIRDS of all Electricity Authority (EAC) staff will hold a two hour stoppage next week to protest the semi-government organisation’s delay in implementing their collective agreements.

A disagreement between 70 per cent of the authority’s employees who belong to its EPOPAI union and the board of directors broke out after efforts to resolve the issue through the Labour Ministry’s mediation service collapsed earlier this month.

The union said the two-hour warning strike, which will be held on February 7, was due to what they describe as the board’s purposeful delay in implementing pre-agreed stipulations for the renewal of employees’ collective agreements which ended on December 31. The union added that both sides had also agreed to raise the retirement age to 63. It said these agreements between its members and the EAC board had been reached last June.

In an announcement, EPOPAI said the decision had been reached after the EAC had been given sufficient time to examine its programme and planning in its new environment. It also said following its appeal to the mediation service on November 25 in 2005 and November 28 last year, the service had ruled that the authority was obliged to implement the agreement directly.

“On February 7 our members, who make up 70 per cent of the staff, will hold a two-hour warning work strike. In the event that there is not a positive response, the measures will be intensified,” the announcement said.

The union said the employers’ side was culpable for leading to this outcome and called on it to take responsibility for the state and consumers.

The employers’ side “abusively took advantage of the organization’s responsibility, which only showed respect towards the foundations and economy of the country and exhausted beyond any doubt all boundaries of patience and good intention”.