The ESB group of unions has told management that workers will oppose any attempt to privatise the company. The ESB board is due to consider a motion recommending a partial privatisation to the Government next Tuesday.
The motion was first aired at a board meeting last March, when it was presented by the ESB's chief executive, Mr Ken O'Hara, as management's preferred option.
It is not clear at this stage if it will be formally moved at Wednesday's meeting. If it is, all worker directors are expected to oppose the motion, along with some other board members, and the vote could be tight.
A company spokesman declined to comment yesterday, saying only that the board would be "considering the options on ownership at the meeting on Tuesday, at the request of the Minister, Ms O'Rourke".
The debate over privatisation comes as 3,000 network technicians, about half the workforce, vote on a rationalisation deal that will secure them increases of up to 18.5 per cent. In return they will have to concede extra working hours, allow more outside contracting of work and accept large-scale redundancies.
The group of unions presented management with a position paper opposing privatisation on Monday. The group secretary, Mr Paddy O'Reilly, said it had also been raised at a meeting with senior management on Tuesday. "We're saying we're not fundamentally opposed to privatisation," he said. "It should be taken on its merits and at the right time. But now is not the right time."
Mr O'Reilly added that a privatisation exercise would be "destabilising and a distraction" at a time when unions and management were negotiating the most radical restructuring in the company's history.
"When the process is complete, when we are fit and competitive and can realise the full value of the company for its owners, the people of Ireland, that will be the right time to discuss the merits of privatisation," he said.
The group is also alarmed by the contents of a letter from the EU Competitions Commissioner, Mr Mario Monti, to the Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, about further liberalising the energy directive for the Irish market. This follows complaints from other electricity enterprises and threats to withdraw from the Irish market.
The unions argue that any changes in the regulatory regime would breach the Tripartite Agreement reached between the company, unions and the Government in 1999. This provides for a graduated liberalisation of the market and was crucial in securing trade-union co-operation with talks on further change, including up to 2,000 redundancies within the ESB.