ACT electricity works may be delayed as workers strike this week over pay negotiations.
Members of the Electrical Trade Union (ETU) took 10am to 2pm off work from Evoenergy on Tuesday, the union said.
Evoenergy is the ACT's electricity and gas distributor, and a subsidiary of ActewAGL. The ACT government owns half of ActewAGL.
Union members are refusing an offer of a 9.5 per cent pay increase over three years, union NSW/ACT branch secretary Allen Hicks said.
The enterprise agreement expired on June 30.
There will continue to be short strikes, of around 15 to 30 minutes, for the rest of the week, Mr Hicks said.
"There's already industrial action planned for tomorrow and for the rest of the week, and we'll just continue to ramp up the industrial action until such time as management provide a better offer to the employees," he said.
"[On Wednesday] there'll be further notices being provided to the company about what industrialisation will be taking Monday onwards, next week."
An Evoenergy spokesperson said the company was "doing all we can to carry [out] planned works and minimise the impacts of any industrial action" but customers may be disrupted.
This may include delayed restoration of planned outages, delays to customer works and late notice cancellation of planned interruptions. They said customers and contractors would be notified if any changes would affect them.
Evoenergy has offered workers a 9.5 per cent pay rise over three years.
This figure is misleading, Mr Hicks said.
"The 9.5 per cent offer is actually worth just 8 per cent because the company wants to deny workers 1.5 per cent in superannuation that every other Australian worker will get," he said.
"It would leave Evoenergy employees on the lowest superannuation of any electricity distributor in NSW or the ACT."
Workers previously accepted lower pay rises in exchange for a higher superannuation rate, Mr Hicks said.
Superannuation guarantees will rise to 12 per cent in July 2025.
Evoenergy said it already pays workers 15 per cent superannuation, which is above the guarantee.
The electrical workers "are well remunerated", Mr Hicks said.
"But certainly in the scheme of things, when the power goes out, they're the people that go out in the middle of the night in any adverse weather conditions to restore power," he said.
"We believe that having a pay rise that's consistent with the cost of living [is reasonable].
"The ACT government have a responsibility as a shareholder in this company to make sure that they look after workers that are keeping the power on."
Evoenergy said they would continue discussing enterprise bargaining with the unions.
"We value the contribution of our employees and the work they do for the Canberra community. While we are disappointed this action is taking place, we respect the process undertaken through the Fair Work Commission and will continue to negotiate a resolution in good faith," they said.
"Evoenergy remains committed to reaching an agreement which recognises the hard work of our employees while balancing customers' expectations regarding energy costs and the services we provide."
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