Cartamundi cites lack of State support on energy costs in closure

Failure to secure access to Government energy price supports have been cited by board games maker Cartamundi as one of the reasons for the closure of its Waterford plant, according to union sources.

Almost 90 per cent of the 184 Siptu members at the plant voted last week to accept a redundancy package of the statutory rate plus four weeks’ pay for every year of service, with the ex gratia payment element capped at 55 weeks.

Forty-four workers who left the company last year are included the deal, which also provides for a range of supports in terms of taxation and pension advice as well as help with securing new employment.

The Belgian parent has announced that the plant, which it acquired from US games giant Hasbro in 2016, will close in August. It has been an employer in the city since 1977.

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Siptu’s manufacturing division organiser Greg Ennis said that in negotiations over the redundancy package, the company claimed its energy costs “went through the roof and the price of cardboard and paper to make the games went up by 60 per cent. However, the energy subsidies by the Government were not applicable to that company. I don’t know the intricacies of that, but they didn’t qualify for them.”

Mr Ennis said he had challenged Cartamundi during the negotiations over a report in The Irish Times that its parent had taken more than €30 million in dividends out of the Irish operation since taking it over from Hasbro in 2015. The total included a €2.9 million dividend declared last July.

The union organiser said he was also told demand for games made at the plant had fallen substantially since the end of Covid-19 restrictions, resulting in a €100,000 per month loss at the Irish operation, and a substantial order was lost to Vietnam.

He said the union “recommended the [redundancy] deal as the best that could be secured in the circumstances”. The fact the company had made the decision to close the facility “made it a difficult negotiation”, he said, adding: “I’m only going to lead people into a dispute they can win.”

[ Cartamundi owners received almost €31m in dividends from Ireland before closing Waterford factory ]

[ Cartamundi to shut Waterford plant with loss of 234 jobs ]

The Cartamundi job losses, announced in March, were among a rising number of proposed collective redundancies the Minister for Enterprise was informed of during the first quarter of this year.

Companies intending to implement collective redundancies are obliged under legislation to inform the Minister in advance. The definition of a collective redundancy varies according to the size of the firm but involves at least five workers.

According to the department, a total of 115 such notices involving 7,173 workers were received over the course of last year.

In the first quarter of this year, it has been notified of 73 such notices involving a proposed 5,345 redundancies – 63 per cent and 75 per cent of the respective figure for all of last year. Job losses in the big tech sector were among the contributory factors.