Fórsa trade union members working in local authorities have voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action, up to and including strike action.
Fórsa has accused local authority management of refusing to establish a job evaluation scheme for local authority staff.
The union represents more than 10,000 local government and services workers including clerical, administrative, management, technical and professional staff.
Job evaluation, which has already been established in the health and higher education sectors, is a process for measuring the relative worth of posts in an organisation based on the work a post-holder is doing or is expected to do.
Fórsa said many local authority workers continue to take responsibility for additional duties and responsibilities assigned to them during the economic crisis, when 10,000 jobs were lost from the sector.
Addressing delegates at Fórsa's Local Government and Local Services biennial conference, which opened this evening in Cork, Fórsa national secretary Richy Carrothers accused the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) of refusing to negotiate on the issue.
"The LGMA's refusal to discuss the issue at the WRC (Workplace Relations Commission), where we convened in January, left members with no choice but to express their determination through this ballot for industrial action," Mr Carrothers said.
He told delegates at the union conference that employers are now "on notice" that the union is finalising the timing and exact nature of any industrial action.
