Bid to achieve Iarnród Éireann savings

The Labour Court has summoned Iarnród Éireann and its unions to talks on how to achieve up to €8.5m in savings.

For more than a year, the sides have been in talks on how best to achieve the savings. The company wants €4.7m of the total to come from the staff wage bill involving cuts to the pay of the 3,800 staff.

Proposals by the Labour Relations Commission on how to achieve the monies were rejected by four of the five unions at the company last month. At that point, Iarnród Éireann said it would seek an urgent referral of the pay and productivity proposals to the Labour Court. Now the court has come back to the parties offering to hold a hearing on April 4.

An Iarnród Éireann spokeswoman said the savings were essential for the financial viability of the company. “Each week that passes without these savings being secured is costing the company an additional €100,000,” she said.

Meanwhile, a team of workers which provides maintenance services to An Post’s main mail centres has threatened industrial action up to strike from next Wednesday, over plans to cut pay, enforce compulsory redundancies, and relocate some of the workers.

The workers, members of the Communications Workers’ Union, are employed by IOL Systems.

CWU postal section national officer, Seán McDonagh, said IO Systems had “arbitrarily sought to implement changes, cut pay and announce compulsory redundancies”.

IO Systems said An Post systems had been refined and that had changed the nature of what it required from IO Systems. It said it was fully willing to engage with the union directly.