A strike at electricity provider ESB was averted after management and unions reached a deal over the company’s pension fund deficit. The deal includes that classification of the scheme as defined benefit instead of defined contribution, contains a clause saying that workers and management will engage in negotiations when new deficits arise and law suits brought by several ESB employees will be dropped. Only days after the deal, however, a new row arose as management and unions has different understandings of the ESB capital injection into the fund in order to turn it into a defined benefit scheme.
English: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/strike-averted-but-row-erupts-between ...
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.