Dispute over Agriculture promotions to escalate

Pickets are to be placed today on four Department of Agriculture offices where staff have been suspended in a dispute over promotional…

Pickets are to be placed today on four Department of Agriculture offices where staff have been suspended in a dispute over promotional opportunities.

Members of the Civil Public and Service Union (CPSU) will picket the Department's offices in Galway, Tralee, Limerick and Castlebar. Around 150 staff were removed from the payroll at these offices on Tuesday.

They had been participating in industrial action involving a limited withdrawal of services.

The pickets are likely to result in a complete shutdown of services to farmers, including EU payments and the issuing of cattle movement permits, at the four offices concerned.

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Industrial action at the Department's 30 local offices started a fortnight ago, when about 900 staff began refusing to handle telephone and fax queries.

The action was escalated in some offices last week with a refusal by staff to work at front counters in the afternoons.

No action was taken against the staff involved last week, but on Tuesday the Department moved to suspend those involved in the industrial action at its Kerry, Galway, Mayo and Limerick offices.

The move was described as "a provocation" yesterday by the assistant general secretary of the CPSU, Mr Kevin Gaughran.

Talks between the union and management, he pointed out, had already been scheduled for yesterday morning and he queried why the Department had acted at 4.30 p.m. the previous day, when the suspension letters were issued.

"Now, instead of having 85 per cent of the service provided, they'll have zero per cent of the work," he said.

Talks between the two sides went ahead yesterday but failed to bring a resolution. A Department spokesman said that "unfortunately" no basis had been found for a settlement.

"The Department does not accept that the union has a valid basis for industrial action and contends that the action is contrary to the current social partnership agreement, the Programme for Prosperity and Fairness, and its successor, Sustaining Progress," he said.

Mr Gaughran claimed staff in the Department's local offices were three times less likely to get promotion than those on similar grades elsewhere in the civil service.

The Department spokesman said this was not true, as the staff concerned could compete for positions throughout the civil service. But he added the nature of work done at its local offices meant there were fewer internal promotional opportunities.