The concrete makers’ association faced a wave of resignations on Monday and may even be forced to dissolve, its chairman Costas Kythreotis said.

Speaking to the Cyprus News Agency, he said an extraordinary general assembly meeting that afternoon had produced “a lot of reaction” from association members, as well as “many resignations and departures”.

As such, he said, between 10 and 15 of the association’s 29 members have withdrawn from the association, while four of its nine board members have also resigned.

He said that these withdrawals and resignation meant that “no body could be formed”, and that as such, the association may be removed from the Cyprus chamber of commerce and industry (Keve).

He said both Labour Minister Yiannis Panayiotou and Keve chairman Stavros Stavrou were aware of the developments.

Association vice chairman Sotiris Spiritos said on Monday evening that both he and Kythreotis would “do what was required” in due course.

“The board, for reasons of integrity, resigned because we undertook a project regarding labour issues which we did not manage to implement according to the expectations of our members. Several members then left, and thus there is no reason for the association to exist,” he said.

The meeting had been called to make a decision over whether they would accept a deal put forward by Panayiotou regarding a new collective labour agreement after almost a month of strike action had been taken by their employees.

Panayiotou on Monday night was unequivocal in his view that it is the employers who are at fault for the lack of an agreement, saying it is “reluctance shown from the employers’ side” which has led to the continued impasse.

The workers had gone on strike on November 7, demanding to be paid for overtime worked and a return to their pre-2013 collective labour agreement conditions.

Efforts were ongoing behind the scenes throughout the weekend to resolve the issue, with Panayiotou having put his “final” proposal on the table as discussions continued on Friday night.

The proposal provided for a salary increase for the workers amounting to €12 per week in the first year after the agreement and €8.50 per week in the second and third week, meaning that workers will be €29 per week better off in three years’ time. This proposal appears to have been agreed upon by all sides.

This proposal had been accepted by trade unions on Sunday, but they resolved to continue their strike after no agreement was reached on the matter of the regulation of overtime pay.

Spiritos said employers had “accepted” Panayiotou’s proposal on both fronts, but had asked for “some explanations”.

“While everything the unions had demanded was granted, the association had set a date for the start of implementation regarding the issue of overtime pay as the text did not mention when it would start, and the unions considered this to be the biggest problem,” he said.

He also said concrete makers’ association members had asked the board not to attend negotiations, and that they had done so against the wishes of their members.

“We ignored the wishes of our members and held talks, and this created a negative atmosphere among our members,” he said.

He added that he and Kythreotis may hold a press conference on Tuesday to further explain what has happened.

Earlier on Monday, Panayiotou had said trade unions had been “positive” about a planned meeting to sign his proposals, and that the employers’ response was “pending”.

He called for his agreement to be signed “without delays and retreats”, while employers had said a legal team review of the matter was the reason for the delay on their side.

On the matter of overtime, Panayiotou’s proposal included overtime payments for workers at a rate of 1.4 or 1.45 times their usual hourly rate on weekdays and 1.7 times their usual hourly rate on weekends.

Kythreotis had insisted on Monday that he had not received the final text of his proposal, and warned that the setbacks faced by the construction industry may mean it would not recover from the strikes until after Christmas.