Siptu is balloting its members in Fás this week over the state training agency's plans for decentralisation.
The Labour Court ruled last month that Fás was acting in breach of agreed industrial relations procedures in only promoting staff who are prepared to decentralise to Birr, Co Offaly.
Siptu says Fás management has said it accepted the Labour Court ruling but is still pressing ahead with its plans.
The union says it was told Fás will be setting up a relocation unit for the Head Office in Birr in the immediate future - and is continuing to link recruitment of new staff and promotional opportunities for existing staff to applicants agreeing to accept relocation to Birr.
So far only 51 out of nearly 400 heads office staff have applied for a transfer to Birr, which is in the constituency of decentralisation chief Tom Parlon and Finance Minister Brian Cowen.
Of the 51 applicants 23 are new recruits who had to agree to relocation in order to be employed by Fás. Siptu branch secretary Greg Ennis said today, "The decentralisation programme is voluntary but management is effectively coercing personnel by engaging in promotional blackmail.
The Government is entitled to decentralise services, even if it makes no business sense, but exercises in political expediency cannot be bulldozed through in this way, regardless of the human consequences," he said.
