DELIVERIES TO the building site for the new Lansdowne Road stadium in Dublin were abandoned yesterday after it was picketed in protest at the practice of hiring lower-paid contract workers throughout the construction industry.
Early yesterday a delivery truck was blocked by about 10 pickets from the Building Workers Alliance, which includes members of Siptu and other trade unions.
Gardaí threatened to arrest the pickets, said organiser Paul Hansard, and a physical confrontation seemed likely until management at the Sisk site said they would not accept deliveries yesterday.
"This isn't just about this site," said Mr Hansard. "This is about companies that are laying off their workforce, when they have plenty of work, so that they can hire in non-union contract labour and pay them €11 an hour."
Mr Hansard (49) is a Siptu organiser and scaffolder who made headlines in March when he held a one-man protest on top of a crane in East Wall over contract labour and pension issues at a site where he was working.
Mr Hansard says that he and his son, who is also a scaffolder, have been banned from construction sites because of his activism.
The move to contract labour was unrelated to a downturn in the industry, said protester Michael Flynn. Mr Flynn said his employer, Pearce Constructions, was offering redundancies to about 40 staff even though it had more than enough work. "The civil section [ of Pearce] has never been as busy as they are now," said Mr Flynn. "It's cheaper to have contract workers, that's why they're doing it."
Mr Hansard said Sisk were typical in that they were trying to get rid of their direct employees in order to pay lower wages and offer fewer entitlements. Sisk only employed 140 staff directly, he said. "They've 500 people working on this site alone," he said.
Sisk officials on site referred media inquiries to their head office, which did not return calls.