FÁS workers call off industrial action over decentralisation

UNION members at State training agency FÁS called off industrial action last night after voting to accept proposals aimed at ending their dispute over decentralisation.

Under the decentralisation programme, 400 FÁS staff are scheduled to move from head office on Dublin’s Baggot Street to a greenfield site in Birr, Co Offaly by 2009.

Trade union SIPTU vehemently opposed the plan because members were told they would not be offered promotions unless they agreed to move.

The union, which represents more than 280 of the 400 staff, protested by engaging in a series of work stoppages in recent weeks, consisting mainly of refusals to deal with phone calls or email.

It was threatening to escalate its protest today with full-day stoppages at four FÁS locations in Dublin.

But the action was called off after members agreed to accept proposals issued by the Labour Relations Commission on Friday. Approximately 98% of members voted in favour of the proposals, a move SIPTU leadership had recommended.

Under the proposals, FÁS will no longer link promotions to relocation, a policy which the Labour Court found in February breached agreed industrial relations procedure.

The agency will remove from future contracts the clause that obligated staff being promoted to move to Birr. Thirty-one staff who had already signed such agreements will have their contracts reviewed, rather than ripped up, because it is understood a handful may actually be willing to move.

In total, approximately 60 of the 400 staff members had agreed to move — although SIPTU claim few of these were voluntary.

FÁS spokesman Gregory Craig last night said the agency would now begin talks with the 340 staff who do not want to decentralise. Efforts would be made to accommodate them at other FÁS offices in Dublin.

But management’s focus would remain on the 2009 move, he said, as it was a Government priority.

Negotiations with SIPTU will continue. SIPTU, while not opposing decentralisation in its entirety, wants State agencies such as FÁS removed from the programme.

This is because, unlike the civil service, where staff can move from one government department to another, State agency staff are not transferable. Staff not wishing to relocate would have no options, the union argues.

“We see this as a battle won, but the war will continue to have State agencies removed from the decentralisation programme,” SIPTU branch organiser Greg Ennis said of FÁS’s agreement to drop the compulsion clause.

“Decentralisation simply can’t work for State agencies,” he added, claiming just 56 of 2,500 agency staff had so far volunteered to relocate.

Meanwhile, SIPTU general president Jack O’Connor has called on public representatives and interested parties to attend a public meeting on decentralisation in Dun Laoghaire, Co Dublin, tonight. It will begin at 6.30pm in the offices of Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council on Marine Road.