Some 15,000 students at University College Dublin returned to college for the first full day of term yesterday without disruption to their studies following last week's decision by up to 700 Siptu staff to defer industrial action for a two-month period.
However, the union yesterday warned that the "real work" over the issue of pension and permanency rights for fixed-term contract staff at the university remains to be done in the coming weeks.
Chris Rowland, education branch organiser with Siptu, said that the union expects to sit down with UCD management in the near future. The union was "reasonably happy" with progress to date, but he stressed that there could be differences of opinion between union and management when it came to discussing individual cases.
"We want to reduce the number of people on fixed-term contracts," Ms Rowland said. "I can see there being some difficulties. If Siptu members are not happy with the pace of change, the strike will go ahead in eight weeks' time."
The decision to call off yesterday's planned strike followed a meeting with the Labour Relations Commission last Thursday night. Siptu says that the UCD management gave a commitment at this meeting to improve the conditions of fixed-term workers and to include all eligible fixed-term workers in the UCD pension scheme.
The dispute between staff and management relates to the use of contract employees who are without employment security or pension entitlements, the "casualisation" of the workforce and cases of institutional bullying.
Siptu estimates that one-third of the university's 3,000 staff, including lecturers, researchers, administrative and services staff, have been on fixed-term contracts.
The university has agreed to establish a monitoring body to look at why and how workers are employed on fixed-term contracts.
A UCD spokeswoman yesterday said the college was pleased that industrial action had been averted. "We are certainly happy to work within the structure of a joint working party to look at specific fixed-term contract posts with a view to agreeing where they're to be legitimately used," she added.