Eir unions vow to fight job losses with ‘ballot for action’

EIR unions have threatened to ballot for industrial action if its new French owner imposes 1,000 job cuts.

There has been speculation that the sale of a majority stake in the company to telecoms billionaire and co-owner of French newspaper ‘Le Monde’, Xavier Niel, could mean large-scale redundancies.

But a senior Fórsa official said unions have vowed to strongly resist any move to impose compulsory job losses at the former State-owned telecommunications and broadband business.

Eir has shed over 2,000 staff in recent years – but the redundancies were voluntary.

Fórsa Assistant General Secretary Eugene Quinn said 1,000 members of the 3,200-strong workforce are protected from mandatory job losses under a clause in the Postal and Telecommunications Act that guarantees security of tenure.

“We have made it very clear that we will take this course of action in terms of a ballot for industrial action any time we met with management if there are compulsory redundancies in the context of the sale,” he said.

However, some union sources said they believe there would be job losses although not on the large scale that has been reported.

Mr Quinn also revealed that unions have lodged a claim for a share of the proceeds of the deal for staff – worth more than €20,000 each – based on the sale value for the Irish telecom group of around €1.5bn. He said this was justified as senior executives including former chief executive Richard Moat will share a windfall of €100m that was triggered by the takeover.

The workers’ demand is on the back of a claim that was initially lodged last year, when the group considered a return to the stock market.

The French bid group has since ruled out any plan to list the company on the stock exchange.

The staff claim, which was submitted to a Joint Conciliation Council, demanded at least 5pc of the money raised in a flotation should be set aside for staff in the Eir group of companies. It said the money should be distributed to staff in a tax efficient manner, through wages or shares.

A consortium led by part of Mr Niel’s NJJ Group and Iliad, of which he owns 52pc, have acquired a majority of Eir and the deal was finalised this week.

When asked about the possibility of job losses, or the details of the sale windfall for managers, an Eir spokesman refused to comment.