Staff claim Brinks set to leave Ireland

CASH-IN-TRANSIT staff due to go on strike today fear their employers have refused to end the dispute to pave the way to pull out of the security business in Ireland.

Security staff at Brinks Allied, who had no-one available to comment on the dispute yesterday, are due to walk out today and place pickets on the company headquarters.

The strike action, still confined to the east of the country, is expected to lead to large numbers of machines without any cash. It has so far had limited impact as supervisory staff continued to stock up machines but, as SIPTU members, they are not expected to cross the picket line.

The three-week-old dispute began after Brinks announced new measures to combat the large number of raids on vans this year. New vans have been imported from the Netherlands but, probably more controversially, staff were told to drive away if a robbery was in progress, even if a colleague was left behind.

Following Labour Relations Commission talks, the Labour Court came up with a compromise, that the two sides take four weeks to try and come to a settlement.In the meantime, the new vans should be used but the policy of leaving the scene should not be introduced and a health and safety study be carried out.

Staff agreed but Brinks turned down the proposal.

SIPTU believes Brinks Allied has a different agenda and want to use the dispute to close down the business in Ireland. The company has been hit hard by armed raids this year, with robbers targetting the firm eight times in the first six months.

SIPTU Security Services branch secretary Kevin McMahon, who once again called on Brinks Allied to accept the Labour Court recommendations, said: “The strike will proceed in the absence of the employer allowing our members to return to work in the line with the Labour Court recommendation. We have been left with no alternative. The ‘drive away’ policy is admittedly a cheaper short-term option than alternatives we have proposed to reduce incidents of armed robbery such as investment by the security industry and the banks in improving the quality of equipment, management and indeed training for staff.

“Brinks says in its statement rejecting the Labour Court recommendation that restoring customer confidence in the service is its key priority. Surely the best way to do so would be to allow our members to resume work and use the formula provided in the Labour Court’s recommendation to resolve matters of health and safety. There is now a growing concern that the company’s real agenda may be to use this dispute to close its Irish business. We believe Brinks now owes its customers, its employees and the general public an explanation for why it has so resolutely rejected all the efforts of the state’s industrial relations machinery to assist in finding a solution to this dispute.”