Eircom wants to reduce the number of unions it deals with from five to two. It has written to the trade union group proposing that all new staff should join only one of the two selected unions.
One union should represent management grades and the other all remaining employees.
The Communications Workers' Union of Ireland, which has 9,500 members in Eircom, would represent all the non-management grades. IMPACT, which has about 450 managers in the company, would be Eircom's choice to represent all management grades.
The three unions under threat are the Association of Higher Civil and Public Servants (120 members), representing principal officer grades; the Public Service Executive Union (about 400), representing executive officers; and the Civil and Public Service Union (1,100), which represents clerical grades. None is expected to take kindly to Eircom's proposal.
Although no unions are named by Eircom, it is understood that IMPACT would be the preferred choice for management grades and that the Communications Workers' Union would represent the remainder.
The unions left to wither on the vine, representing a declining number of older employees, would be concentrated in the Civil Service grades which transferred from the Department of Posts and Telegraphs when Telecom Eireann was established in 1984.
The company may hope to establish a single union for management grades on the basis that IMPACT already represents the vast majority of senior managers.
The CWU's general secretary, Mr Con Scanlon, confirmed that he had received a formal request in writing from the company, in his role as convenor of the union group, to consider the proposal.
He said there had been no prior contact from management, "formal or informal", and no discussions yet within the union group on the proposal. Whatever was decided, he said, there would be "no question of forcing other unions out the door".
Mr Blair Horan of the CPSU said that as far as he was concerned this was not a "live issue". The union filled a particular niche for the overwhelmingly female clerical grades in the company.
The CPSU was not opposed to union amalgamations, he said, but trade union rationalisation was primarily an issue for the unions rather than management.
"If there is a change, it will be a voluntary change."