THE Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications has invited Telecom Eireann unions to a meeting to discuss how much equity employees could have in the company.
However, it is understood that the largest Telecom union, the Communications Workers Union (CWU), has written back to Mr Dukes saying there is no point in a meeting unless he is prepared to negotiate a much larger shareholding than the 5 per cent he has indicated is available.
The CWU is offering £136 million for 14.9 per cent of the company, and is understood to have paid out £200,000 in consultants' fees so far. It has now warned Mr Dukes that the Transformation Agreement with the company is in danger of breaking down if a complementary agreement cannot be reached on an employee share option (Esop) scheme.
Under the Transformation Agreement the unions are conceding 2,500 redundancies and cost cuts of £110 million to prepare Telecom for competition. In return the unions want 14.9 per cent of Telecom through an Esop arrangement.
Serious differences on interpretation of the Esop strategy emerged at the annual dinner of the CWU in Tralee last week. Mr Dukes told delegates and guests, who included senior representatives of other Telecom unions, that only 5 per cent of the company was available at this stage to employees.
The general secretary of the CWU, Mr David Begg, responded by telling the Minister that his predecessor, Mr Michael Lowry, had already written to the unions last June offering to negotiate the sale of a much larger stake. He called on Mr Dukes to honour that commitment.
Mr Dukes, who was clearly aware of the mood at the dinner, offered to meet the unions early this week to discuss the situation. An invitation is understood to have been sent out late on Tuesday.
Mr Begg is understood to have sent a written response to Mr Dukes on Wednesday stating that a meeting might make a bad situation worse, if the Government was sticking to its present position. He expressed concern that there had been no response to the two bids that the CWU had made for a 14.9 per cent share.