The board of Tipperary Institute was "condemned", in an unanimous motion passed at the TUI annual congress, for its "refusal to allow academic staff freedom to join the union of their choice, namely the TUI, and for its refusal to recognise TUI for negotiating purposes".

Tipperary Institute has a single union agreement with the MSF (Manufacturing Science and Finance) union. Academic staff employed last year were told in their contract of employment that if they chose to join a union while employed by the institute, they must join MSF, "and no other union".

On several occasions, the TUI says, it has communicated to Tipperary Institute the "illegal and unconstitutional" nature of this stipulation.

"The choice of union is a matter for the employee not the employer - it is a worker's decision," says vice-president of the TUI, Peter McMenamin.

Of the 35 academic staff of Tipperary institute, 15 have joined the TUI, and, says McMenamin, the 20 taken on last year have indicated their support for the union.

TUI president John MacGabhann called on the Minister for Education to use his moral authority to "put manners on upstart management who behave outrageously . . . Our members who have chosen to be represented by this union are being denied their constitutional right to freedom of association."

Recognition had never before been an issue for the TUI, said MacGabhann.