LIMERICK City and County Council has been accused of deliberately frustrating “normal industrial relations procedures” in a dispute with staff at the Munster Regional Emergency Call Centre.
Staff at the Limerick centre are in a year-long dispute with the local authority over “allowances, conditions of employment, grading, holiday pay, job specification, pay, public holidays, rosters, salary scales and shift premium rates.”
The Mulgrave Street call centre, located on the grounds of Limerick City Fire Station, is one of the three fire control centres in Ireland and controls 69 full time and retained fire stations covering nearly 1.2 million people in Munster.
In August 2016, staff representatives wrote to the council asking them to engage with the Workplace Relations Commission.
SIPTU say they are now going to ballot their members in the Limerick Centre for industrial action up to and including strike.
Further correspondence issued to the local authority outlines that “the affected SIPTU members are becoming increasingly angry at the lack of engagement and that it can only be interpreted as deliberate frustration of accepted industrial relations processes as provided by the WRC.
A staff spokesperson said that “the anticipated outcome of the ballot is 100 per cent in favour of industrial action”.
Limerick City and County Council said that they would not be commenting on the matter.
It is understood that in the event of strike action, emergency calls would be routed through one of the other call centres, so as to cause minimum disruption.
