TALKS to resolve the Irish Life sales staff strike are to resume this morning. Company negotiators and SIPTU officials, representing the striking employees, will meet today.
For most of yesterday it looked as if the talks would be cancelled and the dispute escalated, after the company served injunctions prohibiting SIPTU members from picketing venues where other sales staff were being trained.
The two SIPTU members involved are due to appear before the High Court this morning at 11 a.m., the same time at which talks to resolve the dispute are due to begin. However a spokesman for the company said last night that Irish Life had instructed its legal team not to proceed with the case "at this time", in order to create a more positive atmosphere for the talks aimed at resolving the three month old dispute.
Earlier, SIPTU made it clear to Irish Life there could be no talks - while its members were being prosecuted in the courts.
MSF, the union representing the other 290 sales staff, negotiated a return to work last month. There is now a danger that failure to resolve the SIPTU dispute could aggravate industrial relations in the company once more.
News of the injunctions came as a shock to SIPTU. The first one was served at 11 p.m. on Wednesday night, only hours after the union had agreed to voluntarily lift pickets on hotels and other venues where Irish Life was holding training sessions for MSF members. The second in junction was served at 7 a.m. yesterday. Both were served at the homes of the strikers.
Apparently the senior managers at Irish Life who authorised legal action were unaware that personnel management had reached agreement with SIPTU on Wednesday that the union would lift its pickets of training sessions as a gesture of good will.
Some of SIPTU's 35 members on trike started picketing training sessions for the sales force last week. Members of MSF have refused to pass the pickets.
The company sent solicitors' letters to individual SIPTU picketers threatening legal action, including the two subsequently injuncted. The company took action against them after they picketed a training session at the Gresham hotel in Dublin on Wednesday.
Irish Life would not comment last night on the injunctions, but a spokesman said, "We are happy to say we will ensure the cases won't proceed tomorrow".
SIPTU branch secretary Mr Frank O'Malley said: "It's typical of the management style of this company. If something can go wrong it will. One side of the company doesn't know what the other is doing."
"The dispute with the SIPTU members follows a 17 week one between the company and its 320 MSF sales staff members. Those employees settled their dispute with Irish Life and have returned to work. The company ran into difficulties with its workers over a proposed restructuring of its sales operations.
