6,000 join march to save crystal plant

AN ESTIMATED 6,000 people turned out in protest against the closure of the Waterford Crystal manufacturing plant yesterday.

The protest comes seven days after workers at the plant in Kilbarry took control of its Gallery showroom after 480 staff were made redundant when the receiver decided to halt manufacturing with immediate effect.

In a protest march organised by Waterford Congress of Trade Unions (WCTU), thousands of protesters were led through Waterford city by the Thomas Meagher Fife and Drum Band.

Protestors chanted slogans such as “Workers united will never be defeated” and “Deloitte, Delloite, Delloite; out, out, out” as the march snaked its way through the car park of the Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT).

Mayor of Waterford city, Cllr Jack Walsh, a former president of WCTU, was one of the speakers at the protest march.

“It’s really vital to everybody in the south-east to get in and fully support this campaign; to get those gates open; to get people back to work; to get the business flowing here again.

“But I have to say, and I have to compliment and congratulate the workforce, for the way they have done their business,” he said.

Mr Walsh praised their dignified behaviour and the “professional way that your union representatives have negotiated both with the receiver and with Government to date”.

According to Tony Kelly, chief shop steward at Waterford Crystal, the workers had, through tough times, “always done our business through negotiation … in a dignified way”.

Mr Kelly said he found out of the announcement, of the job losses “through rumour”.

President of the WCTU Tom Hogan said the Government decided to support the British government in opposing an EU directive on insolvency, pensions and workers’ entitlement.

“The British government introduced a [pension] protection plan to cover workers in the UK. The Irish Government has done nothing about it and has left people high and dry.”

Mr Hogan said that 90% of pensions in Ireland are underfunded and “they believe that up to 50% of them could go bust”.

“That means that there’s tens of thousands of workers who will find themselves in the exact same position as the workers in Waterford Glass in the coming year or so.

“Those with the longest snouts; the bankers, who had their faces deepest in the trough, paid themselves in millions … executives, CEOs, their remuneration packages amounted to millions for years,” Mr Hogan said.

Regional industrial organiser with Unite Sean Kelly said the Government, which had bailed out the banks with taxpayers’ money, are refusing to fully address the “problems of the pensions”.

“But there is light and a candle is burning; you are not here in vain,” Mr Kelly told the masses.

“Because, to use an expression that a colleague of mine uses; ‘It’s doable’.

“Well, let me tell you colleagues, comrades and friends; this is doable.”

Workers, eagerly awaiting news of a satisfactory buy- out plan, will today continue to take turns staging a sit-in at the Gallery showroom in Waterford, the seventh day of the action at Waterford Crystal.