Siptu has claimed that hundreds of Irish Ferries staff have changed their minds and will this week seek to withdraw their acceptance of the company's controversial voluntary redundancy package, writes Martin Wall.
The union said this followed revelations that the Attorney General had advised the Government that the severance deal put forward by Irish Ferries did not meet the criteria of the Redundancy Payments legislation - a move which could have significant tax implications for the workers.
An Irish Ferries spokesman said 90 per cent of staff had accepted the deal. Siptu has deferred a planned strike over plans by Irish Ferries to replace the existing workforce with cheaper staff from abroad pending an intervention by the Labour Court today. If the Labour Court hearing is unsuccessful, the strike could start tomorrow.
A general meeting of Siptu members in Irish Ferries voted unanimously yesterday to reject the company's plans and called on management to negotiate with the union.
Siptu branch secretary Paul Smyth said the meeting "was told of the extent of bullying and intimidation being visited on many of our members over the past week. We were told of members being put under extreme pressure by the company to sign the yellow redundancy document before the closure date of today."
He added: "We were also advised that many members who had signed the yellow form had attached a number of conditions to their request.
"A large number of workers now want their forms returned as they have now changed their mind and wish the union to negotiate a settlement on their behalf."
Mr Smyth said the Attorney General's advice on the redundancy offer meant that workers could see around half of the lump sum payments deducted in tax and PRSI.Siptu represents ships' officers as well as a minority of other grades.
Asked about the claims of bullying and intimidation, a spokesman for Irish Ferries said this was an example of the type of emotive language being used by the union to pour cold water on the acceptance of the package by most staff.
The spokesman said that by Saturday night, 478 employees had accepted the package to leave the company, 12 had accepted the offer to remain and one person had rejected both.
Ictu general secretary David Begg said last night the Government could legislate to cover transport employment issues between Ireland and the UK.
Speaking on the RTÉ television programme The Week in Politics, he added: "The question I want to put is . . . if we agree that this can happen, and that we can have a race to the bottom, think of the consequences, the political consequences.
"You will get the growth of far-right political parties who will target this, who will love to see this type of thing happen, who pedal their pernicious doctrine against immigration and so on."