IRISH Life has said it will suspend sales staff from next Monday following their rejection of Labour Court recommendations on changes to its sales structure.
The company, which intends to implement the Labour Court recommendations on Monday, said it will suspend, without pay, staff who refuse to co-operate with the new arrangements.
It expects that all staff failing to recognise the new structure will have been suspended by Wednesday evening.
Irish Life's statement follows the overwhelming rejection of the recommendations by its 440 sales staff yesterday.
The staff, which are represented by the Manufacturing Science Finance union, yesterday voted by almost four-to-one against the recommendations, acceptance of which could have resolved a long running dispute at the company.
Speaking after the vote, MSF official Mr John Tierney said the union was prepared to go back to the company to discuss how the matter could now be resolved.
Mr Tierney said the recommendations had been fully discussed at a lengthy meeting in Portlaoise yesterday, attended by 300 of the 330 MSF members in the Irish Life field sales force. Some staff, he said, believed that the proposals gave the company a way to "drive people out of a job".
After the meeting 221 sales staff voted against the recommendations while just 64 voted to accept them.
Mr Tierney said that while the company can now suspend staff, this will only exacerbate the situation into a full-scale industrial dispute. At some stage, the company will have to return to negotiate with sales staff, he said. "It would be better off to try and find a resolution now," according to Mr Tierney.
Sales staff at the meeting also raised concerns about the compaany's use of an advertising campaign and the distributions of letters to individual employees outlining why the proposed changes to its staff structure are, as it sees it, essential for the company. "Some employees feel that this approach is similar to that used in the past in the UK as a means to intimidate people," according to Mr Tierney.
A spokesman for Irish Life said the company was disappointed at the result of the vote, but not surprised. The negotiating committee, he said, had made it quite clear" to the company that it would be recommending that its members would reject the recommendations.
He stressed, however, that the dispute is localised and will not affect customers doing business with Irish Life. The company, he added, will now begin to make arrangements to process business - from field force customers from next week. Irish Life will also be meeting any SIPTU members or non-union members working in the sales force on the matter, he said.
The dispute has been going on for the past 15 months. The Labour Court had recommended a £1 million compensation package in an attempt to resolve the dispute. It recommended that Irish Life should increase the lump sum and commission payments offered to staff as part of the restructuring package.
In making its recommendations, the Labour Court accepted the company's argument that changes to its sales structure were required, but it also stated that account must be taken of the uncertainty felt by the employees affected.
