Talks to address the concerns of electricity authority workers should take place over the holidays to reach agreement so they do not “have to revert to measures”, a trade union representative said on Wednesday.
The planned indefinite strike of electricity authority workers that would have caused power cuts in three districts on Wednesday was called off at the eleventh hour on Tuesday evening following the intervention of Labour Minister Kyriacos Koushos.
Following a request by the president, the minister met with the unions where he was informed about their demands. Then, Koushos committed to arranging meetings between the unions and the ministers of energy and finance next week. He also asked for some time because he will be abroad for some days this month, the chairman of Epopai trade union representing EAC workers Kyriacos Tafounas told the Cyprus News Agency on Wednesday.
“It is an opportunity to take advantage of the holiday season to come to a conclusion and not have to revert to the measures,” Tafounas said, saying that the unions always “respect” holiday periods.
However, he appeared realistic. “It is possible we may not conclude next week” bearing in mind other commitments of the labour minister, but said it will certainly not take “too much time”.
For his part, Koushos told Cybc earlier that he was “satisfied” with this positive outcome and the suspension of strike measures but added that the government had a plan if the strike were to take place.
Workers called a strike saying that some of the power units in Dhekelia are operating without a permit and contribute to high electricity costs and profiteering while they implied there are staff shortages. The strike would have suspended the operation of six stream turbines of the Dhekelia power plant, which generates about 34.5 per cent of total authority’s electricity production.
Explaining the decision to strike, Tafounas said “it is our obligation to intervene for the benefit of consumers”.
He said the workers raised their issues repeatedly before the summer and called on the government for a dialogue without a response. They also held a one-hour warning work-stoppage four weeks before they announced the indefinite strike.
“To date, there has been no dialogue…to discuss anything and make decisions that will be serious both for the future of the organisation and for the cost of electricity,” the union head said. He added that discussions are needed for another looming issue.
“The issue of adequacy, and how to avoid possibly a total shutdown of the system…that may lead us to potentially unpleasant situations for the economy and the country.”
He said that last year, the chairman of the Cyprus energy regulatory authority (Cera) announced that in 2024 we will need an additional 650MW of conventional generation. At the same time, there is a condition that the Dhekelia units in question should be withdrawn to allow the operation in renewable energy sources, Tafounas said.
“We are a small and isolated island, we have no access to anywhere in terms of electricity, we have no common borders with friendly states that can help us, we are dependent on liquid fuel, and the only way we can be assured in terms of sufficiency is to have tanks full of fuel and units at all times to put them into operation, he added.
Cyprus has been waiting for natural gas for 20 years, the union head said, adding that two years ago, the EAC was asked to make a one-time payment of €43 million to move forward with this infrastructure.
“And two years later the ministry is telling us that in order to allow you to do renewable energy you have to withdraw the generating units that we installed for gas.”
“There is a misconception that renewable energy will help us the most or it may be uncontrolled installation of renewable energy,” Tafounas said.
He added that from the opening of approximately 370 positions requested by the organisation, only a small number of about 146 jobs were approved. The rest, Tafounas said, were referred to buy services from non-existent private contractors. However, it is difficult to find staff for this specialised sector.
It was ironic and humiliating to be referred to us to buy services supposedly from private contractors who have this expertise, even though it is not legitimate for permanent needs of the organisation to buy services,” he added.
According to Tafounas, when this happened in the past to install some power lines, they fell down with the first rains.
Contents of this article including associated images are belongs Cyprus Mail
Views & opinions expressed are those of the author and/or Cyprus Mail
Source
