Industrial action at National Car Testing Services (NCT) has been threatened by SIPTU, in a row over the suspension of a staff member.
The union, which is holding a strike ballot to be concluded next week, said relations between it and the car-testing company are at an "all-time low". Mr Christy Cullen, secretary of SIPTU's AGEMO trade group, claimed union activists at the company were "constantly under threat of suspension or dismissal". The latest suspension involved a member who was facing "trumped up" charges for the second time since SIPTU had won a union recognition case in 2000, he alleged.
"Yet in their own words, he has tested all cars according to proper procedures and is not guilty of fraud or any other wrongdoing." An NCT representative could not be contacted for comment. Mr Cullen claimed that since 2000, the company had "wrongfully dismissed" 10 SIPTU activists. Two, including the inspector currently suspended, had been reinstated.
In all but one of the remaining eight cases, SIPTU had successfully taken unfair dismissal cases to a rights commissioner. The inspector at the centre of the current row was suspended on full pay more than two weeks ago.
Mr Cullen said the company claimed it had identified a pattern of cars from the Dublin area being sent to another part of the country, where the suspended staff member is based, for inspection. In discussions with NCT, SIPTU had demonstrated that no such pattern existed, he claimed. The company had insisted on the inspector remaining suspended, however, while it carried on its investigations.
"We have advised management at NCT that we are willing to enter into negotiations with them to agree a system which would tighten administrative procedures for testing, if they feel such a system would reduce any potential for irregularities," he said.
"In the meantime we are calling on NCT to lift the suspension of our member and to remove hidden cameras and other surveillance equipment which was installed without prior negotiation or agreement and to cease using private detectives to spy on workers."
Mr Cullen said the company had admitted in talks that it had used hidden cameras and private detectives to monitor work.
