Ballots on industrial action by cleansing staff in Dublin City Council are likely to go ahead in the New Year after a Labour Court hearing ended yesterday.
The hearing looked at whether SIPTU was operating outside the terms of Sustaining Progress.
Yesterday, the Labour Court ended the hearing and will consider if it will make a recommendation.
The dispute is over cleansing staff involved in a union recognition dispute with Oxigen Environmental, a private company sub-contracted by the local authority to dispose of household waste.
About 300 council workers, including bin collectors, took part in a stoppage in November.
The council stated that the union was operating outside the terms of Sustaining Progress and that workers could disqualify themselves from benchmarking pay increases. It also said that as the workers were employed by a private company, the situation was out of its control. SIPTU denied it was acting in breach of the partnership programme.
Oxigen has refused to negotiate with the union over pay and conditions, claiming SIPTU represented only 30 workers out of a staff of 300. It said it has good conditions for workers, pays bonuses and operates sick-pay and pension schemes.
Mr Paul Smith, for SIPTU, said the union believed the council had a moral obligation to sub-contracted workers.
He said two ballots would go ahead now that the hearing was over.
The first ballot would be to escalate the industrial action and the second would be on the question of sub-contracted workers.
There would be a meeting of the union's executive council tomorrow.
It would be decided when the ballots should take place but it was likely to be after Christmas, he said.