'Building Workers Need a Hand Up, Not a Hand Out'
20 Mar 2009
ICTU Construction Industry Committee says builders cannot be rewarded for past bad behaviour.
Commenting on the recent conference hosted by the Construction Industry Federation (CIF), Mr. Denis Farrell, Secretary of the Congress Construction Industry Committee (CIC), said:
"The conclusions reached at the conference on the future of the industry are considerably weakened by the deliberate decision of the CIF to exclude any input from the very people who carry out the actual building work - construction workers. That decision is entirely in keeping with the CIF's attempt to make workers carry-the-can for the huge losses racked up in the boom years by the speculative Builder/Developers.
"Nevertheless, Ireland will not start to recover from the effects of the current recession by cutting back on construction spending or by abandoning the infrastructural improvements element of the National Development Plan (NDP). The 4,000 direct and 3,000 indirect workers required for construction of Metro North would be better employed on that project than signing for unemployment benefit.
"The only significant employment prospects for the foreseeable future will be on publicly funded projects. The abandonment of NDP projects will signal that our government has no policy other than the imposition of hardship on working people whilst it passively awaits an international economic pick-up to bail us out. In the US, President Obama has reacted to the crisis by the introduction of a stimulus package. We should do the same.
"Our government must be extremely careful to ensure that the massive cost overruns, the huge profit taking and the wide scale exploitation of workers which characterised the construction industry in the boom years are not repeated.
"Taxpayers' money used to repay the massive borrowings at inflated interest rates which we are now incurring must not be handed over to the very Builder/Developers who contributed to the mess we now find ourselves in.
"The Construction Industry Federation must not be rewarded for their bad behaviour in sabotaging social partnership at a crucial period in our country's history.
"If the CIF is prepared to turn over a new leaf and work through the social partnership process, unions and construction workers will work with it in the interests of the country as a whole.
"The CIF plans for the use of private sector pensions to fund infrastructural development would have more credibility if the Industry employers paid up to €50m arrears it owes the Construction Workers Pension Scheme".
Mr. Farrell said he is seeking a meeting with the Minister for Finance to put these concerns to him in advance of final budget decisions being made by Cabinet.
Building workers want to contribute to the revival of our economy. They can't do so on the dole. What we need is a hand up not a hand out," he concluded.
For further information, contact Denis Farrell, Secretary, Congress Construction Industry Committee - 087 2742893.