Councillors petition parent firm over workers’ redundancies

A PETITION signed by Cork County Council members is to accompany a letter requesting the Government to seek proper entitlements for 154 catering workers who lost their jobs in December.

Standing orders were suspended at a county council meeting yesterday as a number of public representatives expressed their disgust at the way Swissco workers were treated by the company’s owners.

Cllr John Gilroy (Lab) said the workers, based in Little Island, had received no statutory redundancy from the company which he claimed was directly owned by the Singapore government.

“It’s one of the most serious cases to affect workers in the county in recent years. A threshold of decency has been blatantly broken,” Mr Gilroy said.

He said Swissco employees, many who had worked there for more than 20 years, had been extremely loyal to the company but had been badly repaid.

“From last October, the company said it was trying to sell off the plant. Management told workers if this wasn’t successful the company would engage in redundancy terms. The workers feel they were mislead,” he said.

The Labour Court recommended employees get a severance package of four weeks pay per year of service. But this hasn’t been honoured.

“I want this council to call on the Minister for Labour and the Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment to pursue Swissco which is believed to be a subsidiary of the Singapore government,” Mr Gilroy said.

He said other companies could try the same thing if they saw Swissco getting away with it.

Cllr John Mulvihill (Lab) said employees had taken wage cuts and other cuts over the years to keep the plant going.

“It is actually in the Minister for Labour’s (Billy Kellleher’s) constituency, so surely he’s interested. It’s a very unfair way to treat people working in this company for the last 20 to 30 years,” Mr Mulvihill said.

His words were echoed by Cllr Gerry Kelly (FG) and Cllr Noel Collins (Ind).

“I hope justice will prevail,” Mr Collins said.