DISCUSSIONS ON a redundancy package offered to employees by management at a north Cork 4Home DIY superstore broke down yesterday.
The talks followed a sit-in by 16 staff at the Mitchelstown store last Thursday, after they were given two days’ notice of the planned closure of the store and the loss of all 16 jobs.
The sit-in was called off last Friday night after management and the union representing the workers agreed to meet to discuss their differences.
The dispute is to be taken up by the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) today.
The company, partly owned by Dairygold, announced plans to close stores in Patrick Street in Fermoy with the loss of eight jobs and Annacotty, Co Limerick, with the loss of 16 jobs, late last week.
The closure of the Mitchelstown store would have brought the total number of job losses to 40, but the shop remained open for business yesterday as talks were conducted.
Management told staff last week the Mitchelstown store would close on Sunday and workers would receive statutory redundancy of two weeks’ pay per year, along with notice payments.
Lorraine O’Brien, divisional organiser for the southern region of trade union Mandate, said following yesterday’s breakdown of discussions that both sides had accepted the offer of assistance from the LRC.
“We had the opportunity to sit down with company management to discuss the issues but we were unable to conclude those discussions successfully. As we were not able to make progress, we have accepted the offer of assistance from the Labour Relations Commission,” Ms O’Brien said.
Following the issuing of redundancy notices, a spokesman for 4Home said the closure of the three stores was “unavoidable, as it was impossible to sustain the stores in a continuing loss-making position”.
“The recession has resulted in significantly lower consumer confidence and reduced discretionary spend, which has impacted hard on the DIY and homewares market. This has resulted in a marked reduction in demand for DIY and home improvement products. With a sustained downturn and no uplift in consumer spend in sight, the company regrettably has no choice but to close stores which are no longer viable,” the spokesman said.
Separately, the German retail giant Aldi has been refused local authority planning permission for a new story in the Monaghan retail park on the town’s Clones road. Supporters of the project said it would have created much-needed jobs for the area.