Strike issues carried over from last year

THE issues at the centre of the Dunnes Stores dispute have remained unresolved since a bitter three week strike last summer.

That strike ended with a Labour Court recommendation accepted by both sides. The recommendation covered Sunday working, a 3 per cent PESP (Programme for Economic and Social Progress) increase, the creation of full time jobs and procedures for rectifying disputes.

The two sides were back in the Labour Court in October, seeking "clarification" of the court recommendations. By January efforts to set up an independent tribunal to resolve disputes collapsed, when its chairman, Mr P.J. Moriarty, resigned.

The talks which ended without agreement on Sunday were dealing with replacing this collapsed tribunal, as well as agreeing the unresolved issues.

It was agreed that the 3 per cent would be paid and backdated to September 1995. This was an improvement on the company's previous position to backdate the payment to January 1996.

The move on management's side was linked to the union conceding on cooperation on the introduction of new technology, direct payment of all wages into employees' accounts and a reduction in access to overtime payments for new employees. It was also agreed that recommendations from the Labour Court, accepted by both sides last year, could be varied.

The court had recommended the creation of 200 new jobs, rostered on a Monday to Saturday basis. The company is now offering to create a net 400 jobs, but on a five on seven basis, meaning that employees can be rostered for Sunday work.

On the pension issue, it was offered that a scheme would be introduced for staff with over five years' service.

According to the unions, their negotiators were agreed on these points, although they were not going to recommend acceptance to their membership. The deal then broke down, seemingly over the issue of procedures for dealing with any breakdown in any of the other elements of the deal.