Sixth week of sit-in as Vita Cortex talks break down

Workers at the Vita Cortex plant in Cork are entering their sixth week of a sit-in after almost 12 hours of talks failed to achieve any breakthrough in a stand-off over redundancy payments.

Labour Relations Commission talks aimed at resolving the dispute adjourned on Saturday night with no plans to re-convene after the parties failed to reach agreement. Workers and management at the foam packaging plant met in an attempt to break the impasse, but a spokesman for the LRC said they had not been able to find a basis for agreement.

Director of conciliation services at the LRC Kevin Foley said they would maintain contact with the parties.

Thirty two workers, who are seeking 2.9 weeks’ pay per year of service, have been engaged in a sit-in at the Cork city plant for five weeks. Vita Cortex owner Jack Ronan had said his company is not in a position to make the payments.

Following the company’s application to the Department of Social Protection for statutory redundancy payments — two weeks’ pay per year of service — the dispute is now over the non-statutory payment of 0.9 of a week’s pay per year of service.

A spokesman for Vita Cortex said Mr Ronan, who is engaged in separate talks with the National Asset Management Agency (Nama), was “actively looking to get a solution”.

Yesterday SIPTU organiser Ann Egar claimed Mr Ronan had last week offered Nama an unencumbered asset in exchange for the release of approximately €370,000 to meet the workers’ demands, but he later withdrew his offer.

The spokesperson for Vita Cortex said this was not the case. He said Mr Ronan’s discussions with Nama were separate to the situation at Vita Cortex. He also said the union had never formally requested redundancy payments.