The unions representing Trinity’s service and support staff, SIPTU and Unite, will meet with the College on February 6th as the dispute over new temporary contracts and an end to staff promotions continues.
The meeting will see the unions discuss the increasing casualisation of staff contracts within the university with senior officials from the College’s Human Resources Department, including the Director of Human Resources, Kate Malone.
Speaking to The University Times, Jack McGinley, a senior member of SIPTU’s education sector, they would go into the meeting “with an open mind”.
“My understanding is that the College is going to deal with the issue of the review committees and promotions. It’s just a single-item agenda at the moment and I don’t think it’ll be expanded beyond that”, he said.
According to McGinley, the matter has already been raised with Provost Patrick Prendergast at a meeting of the College Board. The issue was also raised with Prendergast at last week’s meeting of Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union’s (TCDSU) council, which saw Prendergast question some of the “post-truth” claims made against him. It was the first time, he said, the issue had been raised with him.
McGinley said the College has been informed that the unions are in dispute with it over the “unilateral change in not replacing permanent jobs with permanent jobs and replacing them with fixed-term contracts”.
The union’s education section committee will meet on February 14th and will hear the views of members on what further action to take. According to McGinley, there are three options available to staff: do nothing, ballot for industrial action or ballot for strike action.
McGinley believes it is likely that some sort of action will be voted for. “I think the size of the meeting in January would indicate that there is a hunger and that there is annoyance and that there is a feeling that we should take some action.”
He acknowledged, however, that it is difficult to predict given the 700-person membership who will be voting.
If some kind of strike action was to take place, it is likely it would take place in late March, taking into account the time it would take to ballot all members and then to notify the College of the strike action. Any action that took place would be the first of its kind in Trinity since the mid-1990s.
Alternatively, the matter could end up being be referred to the Workplace Relations Commission or the Labour Court.
