Protesting workers set to reject revised redundancy offer

WORKERS holding a 13-week sit-in protest in Co Tipperary are set to reject a €2.2 million redundancy package giving some of them over €52,500.

Staff at the Clonmel-based tannery of John Ronan and Sons, who’ve been engaged in a protest at the plant, have been given a management deadline of 5pm next Monday to accept the multi-million euro deal.

Each of the 56 workers involved in the sit-in have received letters from the company and told that if they fail to accept this “final and enhanced redundancy offer” by the deadline date, they will only be paid statutory redundancy.

However, while some of the workers will receive in excess of €52,600 under the new package, it has been described by ATGWU shop steward Billy Shoer as an insult to men who have given long and loyal service to the company.

All efforts to date, including the intervention of the mayor of Clonmel Niall Dennehy, have failed to end what has becoming an increasingly embittered impasse. And now union representatives see the imposition of Monday’s deadline as an acrimonious upping of the ante.

Under that new package, workers will receive payments ranging from €6,086 to €52,687. Thirty two of them would receive in excess of €25,000 if the offer is accepted.

A statement from Ronan’s says the “illegal and unofficial sit-in” at the plant is delaying any possibility of it reopening in the near future.

“As a last resort to obtain a negotiated settlement we have written to each of the ATGWU members involved setting out our final position on an enhanced redundancy package for those who wish to avail of it,” the statement said.