WITH A third worker at the Green Isle Foods plant in Naas now on hunger strike, mediators in the bitter dispute were last night expected to table final proposals to the union and management.
The proposals are understood to centre on a compensation package for loss of employment to be shared among three workers sacked by management last summer, and eight others who have been on strike in support of their colleagues ever since.
Last night the general secretary of the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU), Eamon Devoy, said the mediators, Kildare TDs Bernard Durkan and Jack Wall, were making their last throw of the dice. However, he said he was “not overly optimistic”.
Yesterday, John Recto from the Philippines joined Jim Wyse and John Guinan on hunger strike.
At a press conference yesterday, Mr Recto said when he made an appointment to see an immigration officer yesterday he was told his work visa could not be renewed. He said he now had to send a letter to the Minister for Justice seeking a permit to remain in Ireland. He said his work visa, which was renewable every two years, expired next week.
Mr Devoy said the union would take up Mr Recto’s case with the Minister. He said Mr Recto was a dismissed worker, and that the Labour Court had ruled he should be reinstated.
The TEEU says the dispute is about unfair dismissal of three workers, and union recognition.
It maintains that the sackings were linked to an earlier incident in which a private management file on cutbacks was sent in error to an employee, who shared the material with colleagues.
Green Isle has said the dismissals were not linked to confidential data, but to breaches of IT and copyright policies. It has said that following an external examination of its IT systems arising from the confidential data incident, it discovered a number of engineers had received multiple e-mails from an external source containing adult material. In some other cases the dismissals were linked to breaches of IT policy involving games and movies.
Mr Devoy last night said he could not comment on the mediation process, as the union had signed a confidentiality clause.
Mr Devoy said the union members decided to go on hunger strike after six months outside the Naas plant on strike. He said the company rebuffed offers of mediation by the Labour Relations Commission, the National Implementation Body and the Labour Court.
He said the Labour Court had recommended the three dismissed workers be reinstated or paid €180,000 between them in compensation.
Mr Wyse said he had no intention of giving up his fast “until we get a fair resolution to this”.
In a statement yesterday, Green Isle said it was “deeply disappointed by the excessive action of individuals involved in hunger strike – an action that is being fully endorsed by the TEEU”. It said the only way the dispute would be resolved was through the independent mediation the company initiated some weeks ago. It said it had the full support of over 500 of its employees at the plant.
“The company has been consistent in its position in relation to the Labour Court. As the issue was not a collective one and as the business is non-unionised, the Labour Court was not the appropriate forum to hear this matter and as such the company did not attend, and therefore any recommendation by it is not binding on the company. From the outset, the company has stated that an Employment Appeals Tribunal (EAT) or a Rights Commissioner were the appropriate forum for this matter to be resolved, a mechanism we were happy to participate in and under which the company would have been bound by any recommendations,” it stated.