More than 700 SIPTU members at Forfas, the State enterprise agency, are expected to attend a meeting at Liberty Hall, Dublin, on Friday to discuss industrial action in pursuit of a regrading claim.
The members, who work mainly in Enterprise Ireland and the IDA, want anomalies in existing salary structures removed. At present people doing the same job can be on one of three pay scales with differentials of up to £15,000 a year.
Yesterday SIPTU members voted by more than two to one for industrial action. This includes full-scale strike action in pursuit of their claim. A strike could seriously disrupt inward investment for the economy and hamper services to existing foreign and indigenous industries.
A SIPTU branch secretary, Ms Patricia King, said that it was four years since the claim was first lodged, following the setting up of Forfas.
Since then there had been further mergers and reorganisations of State agencies involved in job creation, training and services to industry. This process had increased further the pay anomalies.
She says her members' patience has run out and they want "all grades upwardly harmonised; the same work should mean the same money". While she accepts existing pay structures are complex, she has accused successive governments of using the constant reorganisations to avoid dealing with the issue.
A spokesman for Forfas said later: "We have worked intensively with everyone through the Labour Relations Commission to resolve the problem. We will continue to do so and use all the mechanisms available, up to and including the Labour Court."
Even the threat of industrial action could damage Forfas, as and especially the IDA. Rival agencies in other countries, competing for foreign investment will use the threat of industrial action to discourage companies from coming here.
The anomalies in pay arise because staff working in the agencies overseen by Forfas, such as Enterprise Ireland and the IDA, are technically employed by Forfas and are on secondment. But they were recruited when these agencies were independent bodies and had their own separate salary structures.
People originally recruited by Eolas, part of the Forbairt division of Enterprise Ireland, are entitled to move automatically up a long progression scale from £20,000 to £42,000 a year. People doing the same work within the IDA are paid on a scale equivalent to that of higher executive officer in the Civil Service. Their scale is capped at £27,000. They cannot earn more unless a vacancy arises in a higher grade and they win it through open competition.
Further complications are caused by An Bord Trachtala staff being paid on the Civil Service scales operating in the Department of Finance. These are slightly higher than elsewhere in the service. Staff about to be transferred from FAS, the State training agency, to Enterprise Ireland are on a completely different pay system from all the others, thus adding to the confusion.