Workers begin sit-in for redundancy

FACTORY workers fighting for redundancy began a sit-in at their plant which closed down yesterday.

The manufacturing staff at the Vita Cortex foam packaging plant in Cork city refused to leave when the plant shut, and said they won’t leave until they get their €1.22 million redundancy package.

The escalation came as political pressure mounted on the company owner, Jack Ronan, to resolve the issue.

His staff were handed their redundancy notices just before the factory was due to shut down for the last time at 3.30pm. But the workers told management they were staying put.

“We’re devastated and in shock but we couldn’t walk away quietly, we just had to keep on fighting,” said Vita Cortex worker Martina Anderson.

Cal O’Leary, who has 44 years’ service with the company, said: “We’re not leaving until this is sorted.

“All we’re looking for is 2.9 weeks per year of service each. If we got it, we’d be gone.

“We told management that there’d be no messing and we’ll do this protest properly. We’re united on this and we’re not moving.”

The workers are caught in a stand-off between Mr Ronan, and the National Assets Management Agency (NAMA).

NAMA has frozen a €2.5m bank account in the name of a Vita Cortex sister company owned by Mr Ronan. He said he has asked NAMA to release €1.22m from this account to pay the redundancies.

But NAMA said the company with the cash and the company making the workers redundant are two separate legal entities and it cannot legally pay out the money to the workers.

It said the money must be used to pay the parent company’s multimillion-euro debts.

A NAMA spokesman said it has no financial relationship with the company and had no involvement in the decision to make the workers redundant.

Last night, SIPTU official Anne Eager said the workers believe a sit-in is the only way to break the impasse.

“While uncertainty remains concerning who has direct responsibly for releasing funds to pay the workers redundancy entitlements, one thing is certain — our members, due to the failures of others, are facing into the Christmas period with neither a job nor the monies to which they are legally entitled,” she said.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin, who met the workers before the sit-in began, described their predicament as “disgraceful”.

“They felt up to this week that there was not going to be a difficulty getting their redundancy,” he said.

“They didn’t know about this multi-layered company network and system, and that has come as a big surprise to them.

“I think the owner has a responsibility here. The owner just can’t walk away and say he has no obligations,” Mr Martin said.

Fine Gael TD Jerry Buttimer also said Mr Ronan must live up to his responsibilities.

“Allowing company structures to be used to deny a rightful payment to workers is wrong,” he said.

He said that the banks, which were saved by the taxpayer, and NAMA, have a duty to act with social responsibility.

“The entire reasoning behind the costly process of saving banks and establishing NAMA was to yield a social and an economic dividend,” Mr Buttimer said.

“Now it appears that both are trying to use legalities and technicalities to deny these workers their rightful entitlements.”

Labour TD Ciaran Lynch, who first raised the workers’ plight, reiterated his call on NAMA to carry out an extensive financial examination of the wider Vita Cortex company structure.

The staff involved in the sit-in have a combined 847 years’ service with the company.