Irish Life suspends 100 staff without pay and warns off another 220

IRISH Life has suspended 100 employees and expects to suspend more of its sales staff today, as the dispute over the new sales structures and practices accelerates.

The loo members of the 400 strong salesforce have been suspended indefinitely without pay, with effect from noon today.

The company met the employees individually yesterday to establish whether they were prepared to co operate with the implementation of a Labour Court recommendation on changes in sales practices.

The suspended employees are members of the Manufacturing Science Finance Union who voted by a four to one majority last week to reject the Labour Court recommendation.

The company will meet the remaining 220 MSF members of its sales force today and tomorrow. Employees who refuse to operate the new structure would be suspended by tomorrow, according to Mr Willie Holmes, who is in charge of the sales force.

Meanwhile the company is talking to SIPTU about the attitude of its 40 members of the sales staff. Another 40 are not members of any trade union. The company planned to talk to the nonunion sales staff next week, Mr Holmes said.

"It is a cause of concern and regret to Irish Life to be in this position. The last thing we wanted to do was to end up suspending staff. But these changes are the very least we need to remain competitive."

Asked if Irish Life was seeking discussions with MSF, he replied that the company was anxious to resolve the dispute. But "after 15 months of negotiations we would have to be sure that any talks were going to be meaningful".

MSF official Mr John Tierney said that the sales staff were adamant that they must be properly compensated for changes in their work practices and structures. They wanted a full technology agreement and assurances on job security.

They were genuinely concerned about their job security and lacked confidence in Irish Life management following a number of restructuring plans.

"I told the company that it was daft to carry out the suspensions. They are going to lose half of their premium income. We are going to have to talk eventually to try to resolve this. We have eyeballed each other, nobody has chickened out. But I think there is a view at senior management level to take on the field staff (salesforce) and break it."

Mr Tierney argued that the company had made a "miscalculation". The clients of the salesforce would remain loyal to the people with whom they had built up a relationship and they would refuse to pay premiums direct to the company, he maintained.

Only 30 per cent of his members would be compensated for the changes the company wanted to implement, he said.

Irish Life rejected Mr Tierney's assertion that only 30 per cent of his members would be compensated. Mr Holmes said that employees with less than four years service would get an average annual salary increase of £1,000 each.

The 40 employees who opted to join the new home service division would get a lump sum of £5,000 each plus an average of £1,500 each in extra commission. All other salespeople would get an average of £1,600 each in extra commission, he said.