Long after workers in all other parts of the Northern Ireland civil service received their pay award for the 2023-2024 tax year, the low paid water workers were still waiting.
Civil servants got five percent and a one off payment of £1,500 weeks after the January 18th public sector strike forced the local politicians back into the power-sharing Stormont Executive.
The workers employed by Northern Ireland Water and NI Water Alpha keep the water flowing and maintain the failing, Victorian-era style waste water system. They are also among the very lowest paid public sector workers in the region. Paid very significantly less than those doing the same work in even the privatised water services either in the Republic or in GB.
Low pay, big responsibilities
Before they won their increase, the pay grade for some water workers in the north languished at £11.22 an hour. That’s not even the bare legal minimum so to avoid breaking the law, their employer had to top up their pay by 22 pence an hour.
Many of these workers are electricians and tradesmen. They include workers who repair cisterns that have exploded after a downpour or who divert water supplies to ensure the water doesn’t run out or sewerage doesn’t explode from manholes or even toilets. Some have a role ensuring the constant safety of drinking water and they have to regularly measure and correct any straying monitors for chlorine or other chemical additives.
Without them being in place there is a genuine risk that people will be poisoned. You would think that even under capitalism these workers would be well paid – especially in a publicly-owned company. Sadly the opposite is the case; indeed it is a telling indictment of the neoliberalism of the Stormont parties.
Neoliberalism and the water service
Northern Ireland Water was established as an arms-length government company by the Executive in 2007. There was little commercial interest in buying the service. It suffered from chronic and long-term underinvestment and in the face of a strong campaign led by militant socialists, the Executive had failed to introduce water charges. So there was little profit.
On the other hand the Executive needed to comply with EU ‘liberalisation’ directives and it also wanted to distance itself from the widespread pollution resulting from Victorian-era water infrastructure. So it opted for the ‘go-co’ government company model.
The failure to establish a stand along Environmental Protection Agency, meant that there was no prospect that NI Water would be fined for pollution events. So the Executive was able to largely ignore the huge environmental impact resulting from growing and widespread release of sewerage into water bodies. This was necessitated by the old and dilapidated and inadequate water system getting clogged up – the cheapest way was to allow overflows and in many occasions actively pump out sewerage to clear the system (this illegal practice continues widely to this day).
Pay falling behind
But it wasn’t just the infrastructure that wasn’t invested in. Pay for water workers fell behind.
The last industrial action taken by water workers was a work-to-rule taken in the winter of 2014-15 which took a few weeks to win a pay increase. But it was not enough. Pay continued to fall behind over the next ten years.
The service struggles to recruit to fill positions vacated by trades and craft workers who can simply find a better paid job elsewhere. But again, Stormont doesn’t care because water pollution and even water quality have largely been simply ignored. Fines applied to NI Water for pollution events have been laughable.
Sinn Féin and the public-private partnership
The one investment that the Executive saw fit to bring forward was the 2008 Alpha project which was a ‘public-private partnership’ – a type of private finance agreement – with joint venture capital company Dalriada Water ltd.
The Alpha project built and operated water treatment facilities which supplied water for the east of the region (more than half the population). The partnership was one of the main ‘achievements’ of Sinn Féin Minister Conor Murphy who had control over the Department for Regional Development at the time (the preparation for the project was initiated by his predecessor the DUP’s Peter Robinson).
However like most of the PFI-PPP deals of the period, the payments to the private operator were huge. Indeed they took away any possibility that the remaining water infrastructure in the west would be improved. Indeed this failure to invest in water infrastructure is a major contributor to the scandalous environmental collapse of Lough Neagh and most water bodies in the west.
The effective back-door privatisation of half of the water treatment infrastructure also achieved a broader goal of the Executive. It undermined the ability of trade unions to mount effective strike action. Indeed it took a number of weeks for the work-to-rule action by NI Water employees to force a concession from management.
The project was problematic and the costs unsustainable. It had to be bought back by NI Water in 2017 since when it operated as a separate government owned company. The workforce quickly unionised in Unite.
The threat of industrial action
In recent months, water workers in Unite and GMB grew impatient waiting for the process to deliver a pay increase. Management had agreed it but needed political sign-off. In the face of consultative ballots showing a strong willingness to take industrial action the Sinn Féin Minister for Infrastructure John O’Dowd eventually moved. Workers were relieved only to find out that his signature was not enough. It required authorisation from the Sinn Féin Finance Minister Caoimhe Archibald.
The unions wrote to the minister to ask to clear the payment. She replied claiming she couldn’t authorise the business case for the pay award as she wasn’t sure it was affordable.
The workers responded in kind. They voted with huge majorities for strike action and gave seven day notice to the employer of an escalated industrial action. All-out strike was due to commence Tuesday 17th December.
Stormont folds but the fight continues
The workers knew they were playing a strong card. The last strike by water workers was a one-day action decades ago. An all-out strike made the issue unavoidable.
What was more this wasn’t just NI Water workers like it was in 2014 – it was NI Water and NI Water Alpha workers.
The word came through swiftly after notice was service that the pay award had received approval.
Workers greeted the result with satisfaction but they remained indignant.
The pay out was 21 months late and it took workers threatening all-out strike action in the heart of winter to win it. It also just isn’t enough.
This pay out does not significantly improve their standing. It certainly doesn’t catch up with what water workers get in every other part of these islands.
But the workers are organised and they have learnt their strength. Those sorts of lessons cannot be unlearnt.
It seems a certainty that in coming months, the issue of low pay among front line water workers will return to the Executive ministers.
The politicians in Stormont need to recognise that this workforce is determined to improve their lot and they know the power of collective organisation. The fight has only begun.