AnCO's £200,000 bundle

AnCo, business

An inoperable productivity deal has cost AnCo at least £200,000 - a result of bungled negotiations which date back to 1972. The Federaated Workers Union of Ireland negotiaated a lump sum payment of between £1,300 and £3,000 for 100 of its members in return for, as yet, nothing. AnCo management is currently and anxiously awaiting the trade union ressponse to a Labour Court recommendaation on the deal.

In 1972 AnCo instructors argued that since the working week of the addministrative staff had been reduced to 34% hours, so too should theirs. They won. But since the apprentices and trainees they taught attended for 40 hours per week (according to AnCo ,--"to simulate real working conditions" - a wry reflection on their own working arrangement) each training centre organised its own rostrum, and juggled their 343;.1 hours every which way to suit their own needs.

Since 1976, AnCo has been attemppting to "rationalise" the "mismatch" which creates obvious administrative problems for such a large organisation. The main point of the pending productivity deal is to get AnCo instructors, who have already won the right to a reduced working week, to work the same hours in each training centre.

AnCo instructors fall into two cateegories - line instructors and senior innstructors. The senior instructors addminister the line instructors and the trainees. The line instructors do the actual teaching. AnCO negotiated this agreement in two parts. The deal with the senior instructors involved adminnistering the line instructors' agreement in return for lump sum payments rangging' from £ 1 ,300 to a ceiling 0 f £3,000 for those instructors with seven or more years service.

The deal with the 100 senior innstructors was made in December and finalised on January 4, 1982. The money was then paid out. The only problem is that this agreement is tootally irrelevant unless and until the line instructors agree to their part of the deal. When asked specifically how much of the deal with the senior innstructors could be implemented withhout the agreement of the line instrucctors, an official AnCo spokesman said, "none." So, AnCo has paid out something in the region of £200,000 and has got nothing in return, and no guarrantee of an operable productivity deal.

The recommendation which came from the Labour Court at the end of April involves standardising the workking week for trainees and line instrucctors and increasing the teacher/trainee ratio to 1 : 12. Previously, it was 1 : 9. AnCo is adamant that there will be no resultant redundancies, but instead there will be more trainees admitted.

As an added perk for the instrucctors, AnCo is introducing another grade between line and senior instrucctor, which will make promotion (and more money) available to more people who mightn't want to take the step away from teaching into the adminisstra tive grade of senior instructor. Part of the deal, of course, is more money for the line instructors, but neither AnCo nor the union will say just how much is involved. The muscle of the line instructors is considerable because if the deal doesn't go through, AnCo will have thrown away £200,000, into . the pockets of their senior instructors.