Technical and professional staff with Forfas have served strike notice for July 19th in pursuit of a pay and regrading claim. The 400 workers are members of MSF and provide a wide range of services to industry, as well as monitoring water and air pollution and enforcing building regulations.
The chairman of the professional staff involved, Mr Pat Naghten, said last night that members had voted overwhelmingly for industrial action. The dispute was not just about pay but "parity of esteem" within Forfas and its subsidiaries.
They felt "sidelined in terms of appointments and corralled into the science and technology sector", he said. The agencies which will be affected by the dispute are Enterprise Ireland and the National Standards Authority Ireland.
Discussions on harmonising grading and pay structures have been going on since Enterprise Ireland was created last year out of an amalgamation of Forbairt and An Bord Trachtala.
Parallel talks took place with SIPTU, which represents the majority of staff. Following industrial action by SIPTU last March the clerical and administrative grades they represent received pay rises of up to £4,000 a year.
The technical and professional staff believe that not only have anomalies within their own grades of up to £5,500 a year been left unresolved, but they have fallen significantly behind SIPTU. For instance, engineers, physicists and technologists are on a scale of £28,000 to £42,000, while Grade 7 supervisors in administration are now on a scale of £29,000 to £47,500.
A MSF regional officer, Mr Joe Bowers, said: "There is a concern among our members that science and technology are expendable. They are making an extremely valuable contribution that is highly profitable to Forfas and it is quite feasible that the agency wants to keep costs down and privatise them."
He said members would resist any such move. "Our belief is that, over a period of time, the quality of the service would diminish if it is privatised."
A spokesman for Enterprise Ireland said it had offered to meet the union as recently as yesterday, when the strike notice was served. He said it was unclear at this stage what services would be affected, as MSF had given no indication of its intentions.