600 ferry staff face lay-off threat

About 600 sea-going staff at Irish Ferries were warned today they face being temporarily laid off without pay.

In a shock announcement the company said it was considering a temporary suspension of all operations by three of its four ferries on Irish Sea and French routes.

The Dublin-based company has been seeking to introduce cost cutting measures to make it more competitive with rival sea carriers and has failed to reach agreement with the unions.

All sea-going company workers received letters today telling them that unless negotiations could be advanced by February 20, it would move to suspend the services.

It would mean around 600 of Irish Ferries 777 officers and ratings – members of SIPTU and the Seamen’s Union of Ireland – being laid off without pay for an indefinite period.

A company spokesman said the length of the lay-off was not stipulated, but indicated it could be several months, adding: “Obviously a time would come when we have obligations to people going on their summer holidays.”

Ferries affected would be the Jonathan Swift, which operates between Dublin and Holyhead, the Isle of Inishmore, which sails between Rosslare and Pembroke, and the Normandy, which plies the Rosslare to Roscoff route.

It would leave the company only operating the Ulysses, the world’s largest car ferry, on the Dublin-Holyhead route.

Last June Irish Ferries launched an examination of its operations benchmarking them against the competition, including Stena.

“It proved we have the highest crew ratio in the British Isles,” said the company spokesman, and it came up with a set of proposals to reduce manning levels of both officers and ratings.

It set itself the target of :

:: Making annual savings of €3.4m,

:: Shedding 52 sea-going staff,

:: Asking officers to work an extra four weeks a year and ratings an extra one week.

“That would just bring us into line with Stena, but we would still be out of line with four other companies we compete with on the Irish Sea,” said the spokesman.

Despite going to the Irish Labour Court and Labour Relations Commission no agreement with the unions had been reached, the spokesman added.

Talks in the Labour Court broke up in mid-January without agreement. There was a recommendation from the court that both unions held joint negotiations with the company, but that was prevented , said Irish Ferries, “when the Seamen’s Union of Ireland refused to sit down to joint negotiations with SIPTU”.

There is understood to have been bad blood between the unions for a number of years after SIPTU poached members from the SUI.

“We were going nowhere, so we took the step of writing to all sea-going staff to state that unless we can advance negotiations by the close of business on February 20 we will move to take three of the four vessels out of service,” said the spokesman.

Irish Ferries said it stated in the letter it remained available to negotiate with the unions any alternative proposals which they came up with which would achieve the required cost savings.