Management and unions at Eircom have reached agreement in principle on a deal which is expected to avert threatened industrial action at the company.
The deal will involve Eircom paying a 2 per cent increase due under the national agreement, Towards 2016, while unions will enter into structured talks on management's plans for reform of operational procedures at the company.
Over 5,000 staff at the company are expected to receive the increase by mid-August. It will be backdated to the beginning of May. The deal contains provision for referring issues surrounding the management's change programme to a third party if necessary.
The Communications Workers' Union (CWU) said last night that it would be recommending the deal at a meeting of its executive today.
Eirom negotiators also said that they would be proposing that their senior management team endorse the agreement.
Eircom group human resources director Tony Olthof said that the deal, which was reached after more than 12 hours of talks over two days at the Labour Relations Commission, was "a reasonably balanced compromise for both parties".
"The family spat is over", he said.
The general secretary of the CWU, Steve Fitzpatrick, said that he was relieved that the matter was out of the way.
However he said that all the unions secured in the talks was what was originally agreed in the Towards 2016 agreement.
Mr Fitzpatrick said that he was concerned at the damage that the row had caused to relations between staff and management at the company and the impact that this may have in the future.
The dispute centred on a failure on the part of Eircom, owned by Australian venture capital fund Babcock & Brown, to pay the 2 per cent pay increase under the national agreement which had been due last May.
The company had sought to link payment of the increase to talks on work practice changes.
Unions said that they would not enter into discussions on the work practice reforms until the money was paid.
They contended that management was not permitted to set preconditions for the wage rise. They also maintained that the company only put forward its proposals for change after the date for the payment of the money.
However, Eircom argued that it was entitled to seek the work practice changes.
The deal reached last night is expected to avert industrial action at Eircom, which could have commenced as early as today.
Unions at the company had served a seven-day notice of industrial action last Thursday.
The unions had declined to specify the nature of the industrial action under consideration.
