Strike action by engineers at Meta data centre deferred.
Strike action by engineers, who are members of the Connect trade union, which was due to take place tomorrow at Meta’s data centre in Clonee, Co Meath has been deferred.
Connect said it has decided to refer the dispute to the Labour Court.
The union has accused the company of imposing unilateral changes to its members’ terms and conditions by introducing new shift patterns which will result in them working more weekends and night shifts.
Connect has said that a new four-week shift cycle was introduced despite its members not agreeing and without counter proposals being considered.
Meta has said the dispute involves a small group of employees who were asked to implement a new shift pattern in May.
The company said it has been consulting directly with the employees over the past six months to discuss the change and agree ways in which their compensation and benefits package would be adjusted to reflect the change.
Connect engineers at the Clonee data centre were due to engage in a 24-hour work stoppage tomorrow.
Brian Nolan, Connect Assistant General Secretary, said:
In conjunction with our members we have decided to defer the planned action and instead make a referral to the Labour Court Under Section 20 of the Industrial Relations Act 1990, the outcome of which is binding on our union.
“We must be clear, this dispute concerns the failure of Meta to engage under the auspices of the Irish State’s industrial relations machinery to resolve matters of great concern to our members, namely a unilateral change to their terms and conditions of employment.”
Connect has accused Meta of engaging in ‘union busting’ tactics by threatening workers that their jobs will be outsourced.
Meta has rejected this, saying that it was made clear to the workers that it had no intention of outsourcing the roles.
READ the latest news shaping the data centre market at Data Centre Central
Strike action by engineers at Meta data centre deferred. source