Redundancy deal ‘fair’

A SPOKESMAN for the 477 workers who are to lose their jobs at the Banta RR Donnelly plant in Limerick said yesterday they were “pretty happy” with the redundancy package offered.

SIPTU shop steward Patrick Curtis, who has been working at the plant for the past six years, said: “The package is the same offered last October when there were voluntary redundancies. I think it is a better package than the one offered by Dell to their 1,900 workers and we can’t argue with it. The company has been fair enough with us and has not been beating around the bush.”

He said as Dell was their sole customer they were prepared for the worst once the computer company announced its move to Poland with the loss of 1,900 jobs.

The Banta RR Donnelly package consists of six weeks pay for every year of service with a 20% shift allowance and a €500 cash payment.

Mr Curtis, 23, who is engaged to be married, planned to study industrial chemistry at the University of Limerick. He said: “I had hoped to move onto night shift to enable me pursue my studies. I have a mortgage to pay and whether I can now go to college will depend on what the Government do for people like me. I had planned to get married, but I doubt very much that our wedding plans can go ahead in the near future.”

Layoffs will commence at Banta RR Donnelly next month when 127 will lose their jobs.

60,000 teachers to ballot on strike action

By Stephen Rogers

MORE than 60,000 teachers are to be lobbied for industrial action over the Government’s controversial public service pension levy.

One of the largest public service unions, IMPACT announced it will hold an emergency meeting of its executive on Tuesday to discuss a ballot of its 55,000 members.

The Irish National Teachers’ Organisation said it is to ballot its 30,000 members immediately for action up to and including strikes.

INTO general secretary John Carr said blame for any industrial action lay squarely on the Government after it “unilaterally targeted” public servants through the levy and failed to reopen partnership talks.

Teachers’ Union of Ireland president Don Ryan asked that his union’s 14,000 members lobby their public representatives over the coming days, ahead of the union’s ballot. The Association of Secondary Teachers Ireland said it would be balloting its members for two days of action.

The trade unions are said to be anxious to work together but are nervous about diverting attention away from next Saturday’s national day of protest in Dublin.

Meanwhile, Labour has called for the controversial pensions levy to be deferred. It said it was unfair on public servants, placing an unacceptable burden on those on modest incomes. In a similar line to that adopted by unions, it said people should be asked to contribute “according to their means”.

“I don’t think anybody has argued against the principle of paying an additional contribution towards their pension,” said Labour leader Eamon Gilmore. “But that has to be done fairly and that has to distinguish between those who would benefit [from] the pension and those who won’t... and it particularly has to distinguish between those who earn low levels of pay and those who earn much higher levels of pay.”

However, Labour Affairs Minister Billy Kelleher challenged opposition parties on their failure to offer credible alternatives to finding €2bn in exchequer savings.

“Our proposals [last week] were strongly criticised by the opposition. Fine Gael purported to put out an itemised list of savings but there was no real detail in them. For example, they called for a carbon windfall tax to generate €300m. Yet they didn’t say that this would be to fund the VAT cut they have called for.

“Labour are no more coherent. They seem to accept the need to make a €2bn reduction yet they then propose extra spending measures.”