Staff at TV3 held a protest outside the broadcaster’s offices in Ballymount on Tuesday afternoon.

They were calling for recognition of their right to collectively bargain with their employer.

About 20 operational staff gathered between 2pm and 4pm with signs stating “TV3 negotiate with your employees”.

SIPTU organiser Graham Macken said “at the moment SIPTU would have collective bargaining with the Virgin Media group, mainly the telecommunications end”.

“TV3 have historically been opposed to having any kind of collective bargaining with involvement with the unions. However, now that Virgin Media own TV3, we kind of think that’s a bit of a weak argument so we’re asking them to come to the table, sit down and have a chat with us.”

Concern Mr Macken said there “a number of issues” of concern around terms and conditions, work practices and benefit.

“At the moment they’re [TV3] saying they’ll only recognise the unions for individual grievances. They basically want to talk to each employee separately on their issues as oppose to dealing with the collective group on issues that concern everybody.

“Ultimately if we don’t get to a resolution, we would have to look at a more formal stance and that could be maybe considering, this would be quite a bit down the line, full industrial dispute on some of the issues.

“We don’t want to consider that at the moment, we just want to sit down and air our grievances.”

In a statement, TV3 said it has “no plans” to recognise unions.

“TV3 is Ireland’s leading commercial broadcaster and always aims to support our people to be their very best and to be rewarded accordingly,” it said.