The Connect union has accused Meta of threatening to outsource the jobs of its members at data centre in Clonee, Co Meath if strike action scheduled for Monday goes ahead.
The union, which represents craft workers, says the dispute involves critical facility engineers (CFEs) whose rostering arrangements were, it claims, changed without consultation.
Its members have been left with no option but to embark on the 24 hour stoppage, it said, after Meta changed their roster from a six to four week cycle with the result they will have to work more night and weekend shifts.
It claims the company needed to change the shift patterns because it made a number of CFEs redundant last year and now needs to cover the resulting gaps.
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The company has said the number of workers involved is small and the action will not affect the operation of the data centre, adding that contingency plans are in place to ensure the facility operates normally. There are no plans for any long term changes to staffing arrangements.
It said it does not engage with trade unions but has been “consulting directly with these employees over the past six months to discuss the change and agree ways in which their existing highly competitive compensation and benefits package would be adjusted to reflect the change”.
The original ballot returned a roughly three-to-one margin in favour of action but it is understood a number of those who participated have since indicated they will not.
Connect said this was because the company told them it could outsource their roles and the staff have been put under pressure by management to abandon the action.
Meta has denied this, saying it was made clear to the workers that it had no intention of outsourcing the roles.
Union official Brian McAvinue, said the union had previously suggested taking the case to the Labour Court and that it would be bound by the outcome.
It said the company’s resistance to engagement with union, which the workers had indicated they wanted to represent them, was particularly disappointing given it had helped to get the centre completed during Covid by working with management to develop safe working practices.
“We also must make it very clear to Meta that any attempt to cover our members’ work with non-union members would be a major escalation of this dispute which would require a response from our union.”
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