Council's 200 outdoor staff to picket five locations in one-day strike

Meath County Council's 200 outdoor staff will picket five council locations today (Wednesday) as a strike over cutbacks in overtime pay and allowances goes ahead. The strike is proceeding despite a planned meeting involving the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) on 21st August. The LRC had asked the three umnions representing the staff - SIPTU, TEEU and UCATT - to postpone the strike action to allow talks to go ahead. However, the unions indicated yesterday (Tuesday) that the strike would go ahead and a general meeting of the outdoor staff was being planned for the Simonstown GAA Centre in Navan last night to arrange final details for picketing. The five locations to be picketed will include the council headquarters at County Hall in Navan. However, it is believed that administrative staff there, members of the Impact trade union, have been advised to work normally but not to undertake any work normally done by the striking workers. The outdoor staff, which include traffic wardens, lorry drivers, street cleaners and gardeners, had balloted on industrial action some weeks ago. This resulted in a 95 per cent majority in favour of a form of industrial action, to include a work to rule, one-day strikes, or all-out strikes. The threat of strike had receded for a time as both sides agreed to enter conciliation talks. The council was expected to proceed with cuts in allowances and premium payments. Today's action by the outdoor staff will go on for 24 hours. If the dispute is not settled by next week, there will be a further stoppage of two days, escalating to six days in a scenario where there is no settlement by the sixth week. The council confirmed yesterday that it had put in a request to the unions to provide emergency cover for water and sewerage services in the event that the strike goes ahead today. The council confirmed that the request had been made but it was not confirmed yesterday evening whether the unions would agree to the provision of emergency cover. Anton McCabe of the SIPTU union said that the 200 outdoor staff were in angry mood following the council's decision last weekend to bring in private contractors for street cleaning duties. "This was like throwing petrol on the fire to our members", he said. Mr McCabe, who is also a Labour Party Navan Town Councillor, said that the dispute represented "a stand-off that shouldn't be there". The unions were finding it hard to get Meath County Council to engage with them, he said. "The council is in breach of an agreement that they made that they would not implement any measures without agreement," he said.