Crane workers strike over pay deal

More than 300 Siptu workers at the Liebherr crane factory in Killarney, Co Kerry, yesterday staged a strike arising from a 2.5% pay claim dating to 2009.

The parties have been to the Labour Relations Commission and the Labour Court over the past four years, but all efforts to break the impasse have failed.

Pickets were placed from 7am yesterday and production effectively came to a halt at the German-owned plant, where 670 people are employed and where Siptu had already initiated an overtime ban.