Ferry workers threaten strike action due to cutbacks

Stena Line ferry workers today became the latest to threaten strike action over planned cutbacks and redundancies in the transport sector.

SIPTU members at the shipping company are to vote on industrial action against lay-offs at the HSS service at Dun Laoghaire harbour.

Some 18 jobs, mainly among administration and harbour workers, are to be axed from the high-speed Irish Sea route to Holyhead in Wales, according to Stena Line.

Union leaders branded the cutbacks drastic and accused company bosses of reneging on an earlier deal that workers no longer needed at Dun Laoghaire would be transferred to their Dublin Port operation.

“Anticipating such a downsizing we wrote to the company last December 2008 reiterating the importance of honouring the agreement,” said SIPTU branch organiser Owen Reidy.

“We did not even receive a response. Regrettably, when we met with them on March 12, they stated that the agreement did not mean what it said, that they would not honour it and they threatened compulsory redundancies.”

But Eamon Hewitt, Stena Line spokesman, insisted they were not going back on the Labour Relations Commission agreement hammered out in 2007.

“We are not going back on that at all,” he said.

“That was always contingent on jobs being available at Dublin Port and there are no jobs available at Dublin Port.”

There are presently 64 Stena Line staff in Dun Laoghaire which the company wants to reduce to 46, through compulsory redundancies if necessary.

The service ran three sailings a day as recently as 2006 but this was recently reduced to two sailings a day and will now be cut back to just one daily crossing.

Stena Line said it plans to make the changes by mid May but will continue discussions with staff and trade unions.

“We will engage in the normal procedures, including involving the Labour Relations Commission,” said Mr Hewitt.