Irish Ferries will temporarily lay off 600 staff without pay and cease operating three of its four passenger vessels if unions fail to negotiate on a cost-cutting agreement.
In a letter to the leaders of the two unions involved, the Seamen's Union of Ireland (SUI) and SIPTU, the company said if negotiations were not completed by 5.30 p.m. this Friday then it would proceed with cost saving actions.
These would include temporarily ceasing to operate the HSC Jonathan Swift, MV Isle of Inishmore, and MV Normandy with their staff being temporarily laid off without pay. The implementation date for the lay-offs would be announced by the company after next Friday but probably before February 27th.
However, the situation has reached an impasse as the SUI has indicated it will not take part in joint negotiations with SIPTU.
The Labour Court recommended in January that the two unions should negotiate with the company together.
There are 777 sea-going staff, of which the 177 officers and 120 ratings are SIPTU members and 480 ratings are members of SUI.
An Irish Ferries spokesman said the company carried out a benchmarking review and found the crewing ratio was way out of line with the main competitors
"The reason for these cut-backs is that we have fierce competition from low-cost airlines and even among sea carriers. This exercise would bring us into line with Stena but not in line with four other competitors," the spokesman said.
He said the company had tried going through channels of negotiation but had failed to make progress with the two unions.
The SUI general secretary, Mr Robert Carrick, said: "We are prepared to negotiate with the company. However, it said we must negotiate with SIPTU."
He said in the past, the SUI had negotiated on its own. In 1991 SIPTU argued that it wanted to do its own negotiating. "We said fine if you want to negotiate on your own. Then this comes along and they find they can't negotiate without us. We can negotiate without them. The Labour Court can only make a recommendation," he said.
Mr Paul Smyth of the SIPTU Marine Ports Division, said SIPTU accepted the Labour Court recommendation. They were willing to negotiate with the company and the SUI.
"The ball is squarely in the court of the SUI. It's even more ludicrous when we are both in opposition to the proposals as currently structured," he said.