During a recent hearing at the Workplace Relations Commission, it was alleged that Siptu’s personnel representation system is inferior to Ryanair’s. It was reported that employees are forced to interact with an in-house committee that could be manipulated and then routinely overlooked by higher management. The hearing, held in Waterford, also revealed that Siptu’s employees must join the union they work for, yet they don’t receive any benefits.
The hearing, taking place on Wednesday, was the second day of proceedings initiated by senior Siptu official Ger Malone. she argues she was punished after making a series of protected disclosures regarding her concerns about issues within the union. A letter written by the Staff Representative Council (SRC) to members of Siptu’s National Executive Council on 1st November 2021 was highlighted. The letter – endorsed unanimously by SRC members – expressed concern about the direction Siptu was heading.
The letter pointed out widespread discrimination by the union’s management against its personnel, underlining gender and political beliefs as the two main grounds. The letter suggested that when the rules and procedures don’t serve the management, they were regularly disregarded. These procedures had established the SRC as the sole representative body for the staff.
The SRC depicted the system, which allowed the top management to vote in SRC officer elections, as implausible. They also criticised the deficient industrial relations model they inherited as less competent than Ryanair’s. The SRC members attempted to bring up these concerns prior, via an unacknowledged email sent a few weeks ago.
Representing Siptu, senior official Karan O Loughlin stated that nothing in the staff’s contracts stopped them from joining another union. In response, Malone claimed that all employees are bound to join Siptu and authorise it to deduct related costs from their wages. For nine years Malone, served as SRC chairwoman but was defeated in the elections held in April 2022. She alleges that the union’s upper management orchestrated her loss which the union vehemently refutes.
Having begun her career as a volunteer steward at a Ray-Ban factory in Waterford, Ms Malone ascended to a remunerated role within the union in 2002, during which she has emphasised the substantial contribution she has made in defending union members. She, however, insists that she has faced several penalties and continued undermining by high-ranking officials in recent years, a consequence, she believes, of the protected revelations she was compelled to deliver, with one executive in the union directing her to be their organisation’s internal ‘watchdog’.
Ms Malone has revealed her feelings of shock and a strong sense of betrayal regarding her experiences at the hands of her employer. Yet the allegations have been rigorously refuted by Ms O Loughlin on behalf of the union, challenging the legitimacy of all but three of the protected disclosures according to the Act, and denying any penalisation or disadvantages resulting from said disclosures.
She originally came forward on the second day of her trial against the union, bringing forward a multitude of accusations, 29 in total, claiming these penal actions were consequences of the 17 protected disclosures she voiced. If successful in court, she is eligible for up to five years of wage compensation.
On the initial day of the hearing in April, ten of her charges were dismissed due to being outside the allowed time limit, with 11 more accusations levied in the half year leading up to her filing a complaint in November 2022 which will be assessed by Gaye Cunningham, the presiding officer. The decision on the admittance of the final eight accusations rested on Wednesday’s extensive deliberations among both sides, with Ms Malone’s supporter base, comprised of a handful of fellow Siptu employees, intermittently voicing their thoughts.