INDUSTRIAL ACTION by 25 Mandate trade union members during which two Musgrave truck drivers were barricaded into a Centra car park for over eight hours, has been called off in Wexford.
The dispute arose when staff turned up to work at 7am on Wednesday and were told by store owner Eddie O’Grady that the supermarket, in the Faythe area of Wexford town, was closing with immediate effect.
Staff rostered to work later that day or who were off, were then contacted by phone by Mr O’Grady, who told them not to come in and that they no longer had a job.
Instead of leaving the premises, the store’s 25 staff, some of whom have worked at the shop for over 18 years, gathered outside the entrance of the supermarket from 8am and locked the barrier to the car park.
Two Musgrave truck drivers, who had travelled from Dublin to take away stock, were caught up in the dispute and were unable to leave.
Negotiations between Mandate, the Musgrave Group and the store-owner were ongoing throughout the day. At 5pm, following an intervention from gardaí, the truck drivers were allowed to leave but agreed to unload all of the stock from the trucks before they left.
Mandate representative Betty Dillon arrived at the supermarket at 6.30pm to meet Mr O’Grady and discuss the closure. Following a meeting, between union representatives and staff, the protest was called off late on Tuesday night. “We had a very brief and unsatisfactory meeting [with Mr O’Grady]. The shop has been doing badly for a while and it is now very likely that a receiver, or a liquidator, will be appointed. The best the employees can hope for is statutory redundancy.
“I understand that Musgraves are owed quite a large amount of money and the truck drivers were sent to the shop to try to recover stock,” said Ms Dillon, who said the union had no dispute with the group. Ms Dillon said some staff members had “given a lifetime of service” and said “it needn’t have come to this”.
Staff member and Mandate shop steward Joe Hunt said employees had no warning of the shop’s closure and had been left angered by the manner in which the supermarket closed.
“We are all in shock. We knew business was down but understood that the shop was going to change owners. We never thought it was going to close and close so suddenly.
“We were not given any notice and, as of now, we do not have any redundancy payments,” he said.
In a statement, the Musgrave Group said Centra franchise owners are responsible for the operation of individual stores and that it had put a number of support mechanisms in place to help retailers cope with current economic conditions.
Mr O’Grady refused to comment when contacted.