Double standards at ESB as staff get a pay rise
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DOUBLE standards are taking hold in our hard pressed economy. The ESB's decision to award its workforce with a 3.5pc pay hike while ignoring pleas to reduce the price of electricity is clear evidence of that.
While its fuel bill has plummeted, the State-owned electricity supplier will have significantly bumped up its profit margin, but surely rather than splashing the cash around its already well-paid workforce, the company should be doing something to help boost our declining competitiveness.
While there have been vague promises that charges will be reviewed as the year progresses, right now consumers are paying over the odds for their electricity -- and this is at a time of relentless job losses as well as pay cuts across the economy.
The news that the company awarded its workers a 3.5pc pay hike as recently as November really makes you wonder at the resolve of its principal shareholder -- the State -- in tackling costs in the economy.
As a State-owned company, the ESB ultimately answers to the Government, which presumably has sanctioned this pay rise. What message does this send out to other enterprises owned and operated by the State? Why should public servants countenance an effective reduction in their take-home pay when they see that their peers in the ESB are seemingly immune to the new economic realities being preached from Government Buildings?
Admitted
Last July the ESB made light of a 17.5pc price hike it was granted by the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER).
An electricity price increase of 17.5pc is considerable, it admitted, but "in the context of escalating fuel costs, is to be expected".
It went on to suggest that we should all feel relieved that the increase was not even higher, stating that the rise was "significantly less" than the increases which had been predicted.
Since that increase was awarded, the ESB has seen basic fuel prices -- the price of a barrel of oil -- drop by 71pc. Have ESB bills dropped by anything like this amount? Of course not. Instead, by November last -- just before it awarded that 3.5pc pay hike -- the company was back at the CER looking for a 5.8pc rise in domestic electricity bills while it wanted small business users to pay 3.9pc more.
As things panned out the company eventually agreed to shelve these demands, but only after wholesale energy prices had plummeted by over 60pc. There was no mention of passing on any of these savings.
Instead of moving to reduce prices to consumers, the ESB has laid out an ambitious and costly expansion plan. Under this proposal it will invest an incredible €22bn to become a carbon-neutral company by 2035 and it has earmarked a whopping €4bn of this to expand its overseas business.
None of this will do much for the cost base of those struggling to survive in an increasingly uncompetitive economy.
ICTU General Secretary David Begg said last week that if more companies followed the ESB example, there would be fewer workers struggling to make ends meet. True, because if more companies were as profligate as the ESB, their workers would quite possibly be out of a job and struggling simply to exist, let alone makes ends meet.
- Pat Boyle
