Sit-in continues at butcher shop

SEVEN workers continued a sit-in at one of Cork city’s best known butchers last night in protest over poor severance packages.

A number of workers with more than 20 years of service at O’Donovan’s butchers, Prince’s Street, claimed yesterday that management did not want to pay them a fair package and instead they were to be left with statutory redundancy, which is just two weeks pay per year of service.

The shop was supposed to close, after 105 years trading, next Tuesday. But when employees got their wages on Thursday, they were told there was no work available for them.

Last November, Martin Higgins was told his job was safe. However, after 23 years service with the business, the married father-of-two from Ballyvolane is now stuck with a hefty mortgage and an uncertain future.

He was standing outside the shop yesterday handing out leaflets to passers-by and, along with other colleagues, was collecting signatures for a petition from hundreds of members of the public.

Barricaded in a room upstairs were Martin Magee and six others. Mr Magee, from Ballyphehane declared “we’ll stay as long as we have to.”

He said that management colleagues had been offered better terms. “I have a mortgage and a credit union loan. Ordinary people on the street have been passing us up food and drink on a rope. We’re going to tough it out,” said Mr Magee, who has worked in the shop for the past 22 years.

However, the union Mandate, which represents the workers, confirmed that it had received a solicitor’s letter from the owners warning of possible legal consequences if the sit-in continued.

Mandate divisional organiser Jim O’Connell said he had tried to encourage the seven workers to come out and follow normal procedures.

“But I can understand their frustration. Grown men were crying in there and they feel they have been forced into this kind of action,” he said.

Management were not available for comment.