So who is telling the truth in the Irish Ferries dispute? Chris Dooley assesses the claims made by the opposing sides
Irish Ferries says it has no choice but to oursource crew on its Irish Sea vessels if the company is to remain viable beyond 2007.
Some 95 per cent of its competitors, the company claims, are already doing what it proposes to do, ie using hired-in agency crews rather than directly employed seafarers.
Like so many other claims in this increasingly bitter dispute, this one has more than an element of spin about it.
It is true that the majority of shipping companies on the Irish Sea operate under flags of convenience, relieving them of the obligation to pay the Irish or British minimum wage.
P&O, for example, operates six vessels on the Irish Sea, all of them registered in the Bahamas. Swansea-Cork Ferries' ship sails under the flag of St Vincent and Grenadines.
However, Siptu is correct to point out that Irish Ferries' main competitor, Stena Lines, does not use outsourced crewing staff on the Irish Sea, with the exception of one service it took over from P&O.
Stena, despite operating in the same competitive market as Irish Ferries, has assured staff it has no intention of replacing them with agency crews.
Yet the question of whether Irish Ferries is leading the outsourcing charge or simply following a trend is only one part of the equation.
Regardless of who else is outsourcing at present, the company says increased competition, particularly from low-cost airlines, means drastic action is needed.
Again, however, this is not the whole story.
A study by consultants Greg Sparks and Martin King, completed in September, found that the company's competitive position was not as bad as it portrayed.
Irish Ferries frequently refers to this as a "Siptu consultants" report, but it was jointly commissioned by the two sides.
Sparks and King found that while overall passenger numbers on the Irish Sea had declined by 12 per cent in the past five years, Irish Ferries had held its market share of 38 per cent.
And an expanding freight market on the Irish Sea had made up for the decline in passenger numbers, the consultants noted.
"Again there is no evidence of competitive pressure as Irish Ferries' market share remains static on 26 per cent," they added.
Even at this point, however, the company cannot be said to have lost the argument entirely. Management says that the key indicator of financial performance is the return it gets from its capital.
It provided Sparks and King with projections showing a significant decline in return on capital over the next two years.
Here the consultants supported the company's view: based on an unchanged business model the projections were "not unreasonable".
All this means is that Sparks and King agreed that something had to be done.
They went on to make proposals which were far short of the full-scale outsourcing plan subsequently produced by the company.
Their recommendations included a 5 per cent pay cut across the board and outsourcing of catering and cleaning services only, as well as a reduction in crewing numbers.
Irish Ferries rejected the report in a matter of hours, and shortly afterwards announced its plan to offer redundancy terms to its 543 seafarers and replace them with agency workers on much reduced rates of pay.
Clearly, Sparks and King, who spent three months analysing the company's finances, did not think such a radical step was necessary.
Neither did the Labour Court. It told the company this month that it had not made out a "sufficiently compelling case" to justify its plan.
The company chief executive, Eamonn Rothwell, inaccurately summarised the court's recommendation in a newspaper article yesterday. "That recommendation was that we do nothing for two years. We don't have two years."
In fact the court recommended that the company go back to the unions to negotiate any changes to their existing arrangements which it thought necessary.
There is a weight of independent opinion, then, that the company is not justified in seeking the large-scale outsourcing proposed.
But there is a great danger that Siptu and the trade union movement will end up winning the argument at great cost to themselves and their members.
Ultimately, management at Irish Ferries will make the decisions it sees as being in the best interests of the company.
Independent analysts suggest it could maximise its return on capital by leasing its vessels to other operators.
That would in effect mean the end of Irish Ferries as we know it, and the loss of all jobs at the company. The longer the current stalemate continues the more distinct that possibility becomes.