Paper staff to vote on taking action

Staff at Independent Newspapers are to ballot on industrial action over a threat to implement compulsory redundancies at the company.

The escalating row threatens to overshadow imminent discussions on a new national pay deal, with SIPTU claiming the company is in breach of the Sustaining Progress partnership agreement.

The union says if such a major employer is allowed to breach the agreement, there may be no point in entering talks on a new deal.

Staff in each union in the company will hold simultaneous ballots between today and Wednesday, with a view to serving seven days' notice of action later this week.

The decision to ballot was taken at a general meeting of workers at the Gresham Hotel in Dublin yesterday.

Ms Patricia King, SIPTU's Dublin regional secretary, said the mood at the meeting was one of "anger and frustration".

The company wants to make 205 staff redundant by outsourcing functions carried out by clerical, administrative, telesales, finance and general operative staff.

Employees in the relevant sections who fail to apply for a severance package by Friday of this week have been told they will be compulsorily made redundant on statutory terms.

A company spokesman said last night that 190 staff had accepted the "very generous package" on offer, which ranged from €40,000 to an employee with short service to €260,000 for a worker with 40 years' service.

An enhanced deferred pension and maintenance of life assurance cover was also part of the package. The company expected more staff to sign up for the deal this week.

Ms King, however, claimed those accepting the package had had "a gun put to their heads" and some did not want to leave their jobs. Any move to implement compulsory redundancies would "certainly" trigger industrial action, she said.

The National Implementation Body has met three times in the past fortnight to discuss the row, an indication of the level of concern about its implications for the partnership process.

The NIB comprises representatives of the Government, employers and unions and it monitors the implementation of partnership agreements.

It issued a statement on Friday night saying that SIPTU's claim that the Independent was acting in breach of Sustaining Progress should be jointly referred by the two sides to the Labour Court.

The company, however, has already declined a Labour Court invitation to talks, stating that it has been to the court a number of times and the process has been exhausted. The company spokesman said it had no comment on the NIB's statement.