Gama workers to secure payout in court deal

TURKISH workers at Gama are on the brink of securing an historic payout after two months of ceaseless protests over wage fraud and underpayment.

Following the acceptance of a Labour Court recommendation by 80 Gama workers yesterday, management at the company were last night seeking confirmation from the Labour Court on some aspects of the deal.

However, Gama is widely expected to pave the way for an average payout of over €13,000 by accepting the recommendations.

Although the deal comes nowhere near compensating workers for their claim that Gama failed to pay them for up to 40 hours’ overtime each week, prosecuting the case in the courts would have taken up to two years.

Amid allegations of intimidation and harassment, more than 200 of the original 300 protesters have already returned to Turkey.

Those who remained to fight on will receive €8,000 for each year with the company and an ex-gratia payment of one month’s salary on completion of their contracts in Ireland.

The minimum payment has been set at €2,000, while the average worker with 17 months’ service can expect to receive €13,000.

The latest windfall comes on top of the millions in wages held by Gama in previously unknown Dutch bank accounts which were forwarded to the employees last month.

Socialist Party leader Joe Higgins, who championed the cause of Gama’s workers, said that the outcome was a “stunning vindication of the workers’ claims”.

SIPTU national industrial secretary Noel Dowling said the decision to accept the deal represented “a pragmatic solution for the workers to bring an end to their fight for justice in the most extreme circumstances - far from their homeland and with the added difficulty of trying to communicate in a foreign language”.

“They fought for justice but were obliged to settle for pragmatism because the State, despite all the labour legislation we have, could not vindicate their right to the outstanding money.

“If any lessons are to be learned from this unprecedented dispute they are that the Government must introduce protection for migrant workers which will guarantee their rights while they are still in this country and free to tell their story. In the case of Gama, the State has failed the workers,” he added.