A PLANNED one-day closure of the National Gallery of Ireland because of industrial action was deferred last night.
Room attendants at the national gallery had been due to strike today in a dispute over duties but this was postponed following talks at the Labour Relations Commission.
Siptu agreed to defer the strike pending the intervention of the State’s main industrial relations troubleshooting mechanism, the National Implementation Body.
The body, consisting of high-level representatives of employers, unions and the Government, is due to meet on Monday.
Siptu organiser Conor O’Gorman said this would be the first case to be heard by the body under the Croke Park agreement and was “uncharted territory”.
The row involves room attendants at the National Gallery of Ireland who provide static security in art rooms.
Mr O’Gorman said that the staff were seeking a broader range of duties and that this would not involve the payment of additional money.
He said he was confident the body would bear out the claims of the staff.
At a Labour Court hearing in January the union urged that the duties of room attendants be reintegrated with those of the grade of security attendant at the gallery.
It said that this had been the case before 1993. This would be a key element in providing a better working environment for all the attendants working at the gallery
The union contended that in the past all attendants were deployed to all security positions, including the security control room on a rotating basis.
It said all room attendant staff were fully security vetted and had received security clearance from the Garda.
It maintained that by allowing full integration “attendants would experience more variety in their work and could improve the service that they give to the public”.
Management told the Labour Court that the Garda had conducted a security survey in 2000 which concluded that the number of staff with access to and knowledge of security control room procedures should be reduced.
Management also said that it was responsible for the national art collection, and that it must be allowed to manage security procedures as it saw fit without interference.
The Labour Court said that the union’s objective should be capable of achievement “by other means which do not impinge on the maintenance of proper security systems and practices”.
In a statement before the strike was deferred yesterday, the National Gallery of Ireland said that management had already made a number of proposals to address the core issues at the heart of the dispute which had been rejected by the room attendants.
“The gallery cannot agree to any change that would undermine the integrity of its security operations and potentially put the national treasures at risk,” said the statement.