About 60 staff at Meta contractor Covalen will take industrial action on Wednesday is a dispute over grading, pay and union recognition.
The workers involved say they are classed as community operations analysts when they in fact work as paralegals. Their work, they say, includes dealing with court orders, supporting the company’s legal team and conducting investigations.
They are seeking a regrading and a pay review which the Communication Workers Union (CWU) contends should result in pay increases of at least €1,000 per annum.
“We’ve been trying to engage with the company on this for several months but our members have been pushed back on every occasion,” says CWU organiser, John Bohan.
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“We did some surveys with the staff on the work that they do and sent a petition and an open letter but the staff have been fobbed off and effectively told that ‘anyone can do what you do’. There are grades in the [parent company] CPL manual that are more appropriate to the work they are doing and the demand is very modest, we just want to open up a salary review.”
The seven hour stoppage comes a week after the company told employees it would seek to make up to 420 staff redundant over the coming weeks.
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The consultation process in relation to those job cuts is said to have commenced on Tuesday with a number of meetings taking place with elected worker representatives. These are separate to the union as the company will not engage with the CWU for the purposes of collective bargaining.
The union has called on the company to do more to facilitate workers engaged in that process and to allow the CWU to support them.
It has criticised the suggestion the company will pay no more than statutory redundancy to those leaving and says some of the workers, many of whom were recruited to work in Ireland from Asia, had only recently secured permits to work at the company.
“There is a lot of anger about the decision and the timing,” says Mr Bohan. “The company says it wants to have the entire process wrapped up by January 16th and there are a lot of people who will be worried about their jobs over the Christmas period.
In response to a request for comment, Covalen said it “has always prioritised direct and open engagement with our employees, and while we fully respect the right of employees to take industrial action, we have been proactively consulting with our teams. We will continue to engage with our teams and our commitment to direct and meaningful dialogue remains unchanged.”
