News

Monday 1 June 2009

Strike fear at Dublin box hub

The threat of strike action is hanging over one of the port of Dublin’s largest container terminals because of a dispute between workers and bosses over pay and redundancy. Marine Terminals, which accounts for around 25% of traffic handled at the port, has made 19 redundancies from its workforce of 81 and is renegotiating workers’ pay because of the economic downturn.

Workers said they were unhappy with the redundancy offer – and as a result only five of the 19 staff members made redundant did so voluntarily – and the new pay levels on offer. The workers’ union SIPTU-MPGWU has referred the case to the Irish government under the Protection of EmploymentAct, which stops employers making redundancies while bringing in other workers to do the same job on a lower wage.

SIPTU-MPGWU organiser Oliver McDonagh said the workers had voted to go on strike, but this was on hold while the case was reviewed by the Irish government.
He said: “We understand that there has to be some redundancies and we docactually understand there are other issues that need to be dealt with as far as other costs are concerned. If they had negotiated the redundancy package with us they would have got volunteers and we told them that all the way through the process.”

A Peel Ports spokesman said: “It’s extremely regrettable that we have been forced to take this action. We were keen to ensure that we achieved this through voluntary redundancies, but the situation is urgent – we have no other option.”

The spokesman added Peel Ports had been in negotiations with the workers’ union for over two months and the wages enjoyed by the terminal’s workers were “far above industry norms”.

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