North car workers refuse to halt sit-in protest

Workers at a French-owned car components plant facing redundancy in the North maintained a sit-in tonight after turning down a management offer of negotiations if they halted the protest.

The workforce at the Calcast plant at Campsie in Derry launched the sit-in on Monday morning amid union claims they were being short-changed in redundancy payments.

Management at the company, which is a subsidiary of Paris-headquartered Montupet, said around 90 workers would be made redundant with the remaining 12 being kept on.

Unions said limiting the number of those being paid off to below 99 meant those going will only get a one-month notice payment, compared to the three-month payment they would get if the whole workforce went.

SDLP leader and local Foyle MP Mark Durkan had talks with both management and workers in a bid to resolve the dispute.

He said he told management their offer of redundancy negotiations, but only after the sit-in was over, was unrealistic.

“I shared with them the view this was not realistic or reasonable,” he said.

Mr Durkan said the workers made clear they believed the firm’s stated intention of keeping 10 or 12 jobs was “a temporary contrivance to get around higher redundancy obligations to those laid off.”

He added: “Management representatives told me that the jobs being retained are necessary and real in terms of security, machine maintenance and some post in Belfast.

“They know that I was not convinced by their arguments.”

Calcast, which makes cylinder heads for the Ford Explorer 4x4, blamed the shutdown of the plant on the global financial crisis and a plunge in sales of the Explorer.

Workers had feared the worst after being laid off for the past two weeks, but were ready to resume production when they arrived for work on Monday.

Philip Oakes from the Unite union said its members decided it “would be better for them to remain on site” while they tried to resolve the dispute..

He said: “Their view is that if they are to leave at this stage, the company might close the gates behind them and not let them back in, so individual members have decided to stage a sit-in at the plant until such times as the issue is resolved.”