The Government's decentralisation programme has suffered a significant setback following a decision by the Labour Court that the State training and employment agency Fás cannot make promotions conditional on staff being prepared to relocate from Dublin to its proposed new headquarters in Birr, Co Offaly.
In a recommendation, Labour Court chairman Kevin Duffy said that staff applying for promotions had the right to be judged on suit-ability and merit alone.
Siptu, which took the case on behalf of staff in Fás, said last night that the judgment had major implications for 2,500 of its members in 23 semi-State agencies. It said it was also opposing "forcible decentralisation" in other commercial semi-State bodies, such as the Arts Council, BIM, Bord Bia, Bus Éireann, Central Fisheries Board, Combat Poverty Agency, Enterprise Ireland, Foras na Gaeilge, Fáilte Ireland, Fetac, Hetac, National Building Agency, National Safety Council, National Roads Authority and the National Standards Authority Ireland.
Siptu said that so far, fewer than 60 of its members in these agencies had agree to move under decentralisation.
Greg Ennis, the Siptu branch organiser in Fás, said last night that the Government should now rethink its plans to include State agencies in the decentralisation programme. He said Fás had attempted to engage in "promotional blackmail" and that the Labour Court had seen through it.
The Labour Court ruling followed a lengthy dispute at Fás, including a strike in April and May last year, over moves by the agency to link promotions at its current headquarters in Baggot Street in Dublin to agreement by applicants to move to Birr.
In its recommendation, the Labour Court said Fás had maintained that the transfer of staff under the decentralisation programme would be on a voluntary basis.
It said this must mean that staff had a right not to move.
"However, if they exercise that right they would be effectively be denied access to promotions to which they could otherwise aspire. Thus, in practice, the over-riding criterion for promotion would be a willingness on the part of the candidate to relinquish his or her rights not to transfer.
"Given the importance of career progression to those involved, such a state of affairs is, in the court's view, incompatible with any reasonable notion of voluntarism," it stated.
The Labour Court, in its recommendation, acknowledged that similar promotion clauses had been introduced in the Civil Service.
However, it said there was a difference of scale between employment in the Civil Service and individual State agencies.
The Labour Court said there was also a greater possibility of inter-departmental transfers in the Civil Service.
Siptu last night welcomed the Labour Court recommendation as "a major victory".
The union's regional secretary, Patricia King, said the outcome had major implications for 2,500 Siptu members in 23 semi-State agencies.
"The court has accepted our argument that staff in these agencies, many of them highly qualified specialists, have different terms of employment to civil servants and that the same degree of interchangeability does not exist," she said.
Ms King said civil servants may be able to move between departments without material loss but the same did not apply to employees of non-commercial semi-States.
Mr Ennis said: "As the court has reminded the Government, decentralisation is supposed to be a voluntary process."