IRISH Life is to appeal a court decision that it acted illegally in suspending an employee during an industrial dispute in 1994. The finding, by Judge Mangan of the District Court, could have widespread implications for employers and workers.
The company has taken the decision on the eve of a threatened dispute with its 450 sales staff. Today, 67 sales managers will vote on a restructuring deal that is being recommended by their negotiators in the Manufacturing Science and Finance union (MSF) and by management.
If it is accepted it will still leave unresolved the problem of persuading the 450 Personal Financial Advisers (PFAs) to accept the new system. On Saturday, they voted to reject the latest proposals.
Part of the managers' package requires that 23 of them redeploy as heads of sales teams made up of PFAs. Company sources said yesterday that if the managers accept the new offer, then it would expect the new teams to start operating within a few days. But the MSF has made it clear it will not co operate with the new team system until there are further talks over the package for PFAs.
Irish Life is not seeking redundancies or redeployment among PFAs and says these advisers should suffer no loss of income from the proposed changes. However, they do involve increased supervision.
The company also wants to remove the "commission bias" in the existing system by which it is more profitable for PFAs to sell one type of policy rather than another. Instead they will receive commission on a weighted average across the type of policies they sell.
Some PFAs are concerned that this could seriously erode commissions, which make up about half of their income.
Irish Life is by far the largest insurance company in the State with 1,600 employees, most of whom are in MSF. Any final deal will set a benchmark for other negotiations across the sector.
The senior Irish officer of MSF, Mr John Tierney, has warned there will be a major dispute if the company presses ahead with the reorganisation of the sales force this week.