If craftworkers accept the latest offer to resolve their dispute with local authorities and the health services, dissident members are likely to mount a legal challenge to the result. Unofficial strike action by the same group led to disruption in May at hospitals in Waterford, Cork, Limerick, Galway and the north-east.
The craftworkers' ballot will be counted tomorrow in the headquarters of the Technical Engineering Electrical Union and is expected to be heavily in favour of acceptance of the £26.25 a week pay rise, which includes backdating of 80 per cent of the award to July 1997.
However members of the TEEU who are opposed to the deal have consulted legal opinion and believe they can successfully challenge the outcome in the High Court. The basis of the challenge will be that some of the votes of craftworkers' mates will have been included in the aggregate ballot.
The mates receive 80 per cent of any increase awarded to the craftworkers. The dissidents argue that the mates should be balloted with general operatives in SIPTU, rather than with craftworkers. Under a 1993 agreement there is provision for the inclusion of up to 50 craftsmen's mates in craftworkers' ballots on pay. The dissidents claim that in the last ballot in a craft dispute far more craftworkers' mates balloted than the 50 provided for.
Some of the craft unions may not be willing to provide separate figures for ballots by different categories of workers. BATU and UCATT have both expressed reservations about having their voting arrangements determined by the craft group of unions.
A spokesman for the dissidents said last night, "We have no problem with democracy. We want the ballot conducted properly. That's all we want."
The result of the ballot should be known early tomorrow afternoon. Even if the dissidents press ahead with their legal challenge, it should not lead to any immediate industrial action.
Meanwhile, ambulance drivers begin balloting today on strike action in support of 19 colleagues in Wicklow who have refused to relocate from Wicklow to Arklow. Their union, SIPTU, is widening the dispute because the Eastern Health Board has called in the Army to provide an alternative service.