Wages must be paid immediately
No privatisation of Housing Executive services – bring all workers back into Housing Executive
More than 25 Housing Executive maintenance workers are staging a sit-in on the Boucher Rd in Belfast in protest against unpaid wages and a lack of guarantee of future wages.
The workers are employed by Garrivan O’Rourke – a company which is contracted by the Housing Executive to maintain Housing Executive properties in North and East Belfast and Lisburn.
Workers have not received wages they were meant to receive last Wednesday and have received no guarantee from management that they will be paid in the future. Workers have condemned the company for their refusal to pay them their wages and as a result will “ exacerbate the significant backlog of maintenance on tenants homes”.
Workers have also blamed the policy of privatising maintenance contracts outside the Housing Executive as having failed and are demanding that they are taken back fully as part of the Housing Executive. Workers have also raised their opposition to Housing Minister Nelson McCausland’s plans to break up the Housing Executive which represents the privatisation of social housing in Northern Ireland.
The Socialist Party calls on the wider trade union movement and workers to give their support to the workers at Garrivan O’Rourke and demand that workers are paid every penny they are owed.
