THE fate of the £136 million bid by Telecom Eireann workers for a 14.9 per cent share in the company through an Employee Share Option (ESOP) scheme hangs in the balance today.
The general secretary of the Communications Workers Union, Mr David Begg, has told the company and the Government there will be a return to industrial conflict in Telecom Eireann if they "walk away" from the scheme.
This evening the Minister for Transport, Energy and Communications, Mr Dukes, is to address the union conference in Tralee and delegates will be waiting to hear if the Government is willing to concede a 14.9 per cent ESOP deal. It has already indicated that it is prepared to concede at least 10 per cent, if the price is right. Sale of a further 5 per cent would also depend on the price, and the compliance of Telecom's strategic partner, KPN/Telia.
The Labour Party and Democratic Left support the ESOP scheme in principle. It is understood the Tanaiste, Mr Spring and the Minister for Social Welfare, Mr De Rossa, are receiving briefings on the financial implications of the CWU proposals.
Mr Spring is to attend the CWU conference tomorrow. He will be accompanied by the general secretary of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions, Mr Peter Cassells, who is also due to address the closing session. Mr Cassells has been a strong advocate of the Telecom Eireann ESOP scheme and sees it as a way of developing a working model of social partnership in Ireland.
In an impassioned speech to CWU delegates yesterday, Mr Begg said the refusal so far of the company and the Government to conclude the ESOP scheme meant they were condemning the company to a return to industrial confrontation.
Referring to the 2,500 redundancies and £110 million in cost cutting plans the union had been prepared to accept in return for the shareholding, Mr Begg said: "We did everything asked of us. We tackled every single problem thrown up. We shirked nothing and we hacked away from nothing."
But thy chief executive of Telecom Eireann, Mr Alfie Kane, had been quoted in the media as comparing efforts to obtain change to "walking through treacle". Mr Begg said that "from now on he'll be walking through quicksand".
Mr Begg accused the company of leaking stories to the media on difficulties in negotiating change in Telecom Eireann. It appeared management did not want a deal and did not think the unions could deliver one.
He accused senior civil servants, financial institutions and major private companies of being ideologically opposed to workers being allowed to use their collective strength to buy a shareholding in a major State company. "They don't want to let workers into their citadels of capital", he said.