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Thomas Cook Workers Lock-in Over Sackings (Video included)
Read more about: Democracy, Interviews, Ireland, News 
Employees of Thomas Cook branches in Dublin have locked themselves into the branch at the bottom of Grafton Street in a dispute over redundancy packages and the manner in which they were told they’d lost their jobs. I was down there for a time earlier speaking to a number of those involved.
According to the fiance of one of the protesting workers a regional manager from Thomas Cook in the UK arrived unannounced this morning and told all the staff that their jobs were gone, with immediate effect. Although the company had announced they would be closing their Dublin offices this year several months ago, the timing was “shocking”, the staff believed they had another month before closure. He said the staff were told they would receive the statutory redundancy package of two weeks pay per year of service and their pay in lieu of notice if they left immediately. However the BBC is reporting the redundancy offer is five weeks. The majority of the staff are working there for less than two yea
rs, according to one relative of a staff member. The leaflet being handed out by representatives of the union (TSSA) notes that there are staff involved who have worked with the company for more than 20 years.
As I mentioned, the staff have taken issue with what they regard as a poor redundancy offer, however they are also protesting against the way in which the redundancy packages were being negotiated. Talks have been on-going since the announcement of store closures but the staff claim the manner in which the company has been negotiating has been “threatening”. The BBC report does contain the sentence…
The company said it was offering five weeks per year of service as a redundancy package, which will drop to two weeks if the workers do not accept it.
… which could be interpreted to support that claim.
The Socialist Workers Party are staging a protest against the management, in support of the workers, outside the office. They are claiming that the current redundancy packages offered would cost the company just €600,000 and that Manny Fontenia-Novoa, the Thomas Cook CEO, gave himself a bonus of €7m, and 34% pay rise, last year. Below is an interview with the staff shot by Social Workers Party organiser, Donal McFerry.
I spoke with one of the workers briefly, they do seem determined to stick this one out – at least they do at this stage. Their union representative is travelling in from the UK today to sit down with the company’s negotiators. At 5pm today the workers were locked into the upper floors while the press officers and senior regional management are locked into the ground floor, waiting for their respective negotiators.
77 jobs will go.
Am I correct in saying the forthcoming months look likely to be filled with sit-ins like this? Do Irish Election readers believe they are worthwhile? Do they achieve much? Is there another way it could be dealt with?
Well I imagine that it is inevitable really. For one. More and more people are using the internet to book holidays. So the travel agency are likely to go. The thing is about recessions is that it weeds out the weaker companies that are not going to survive. Sadly they usually employ people.
As for the redundancy thing. Have Thomas Cook broken any laws? They seem to be giving the workers the legal amount. So what can you do? This is really just going to hurt Thomas cook iif it becomes a big story in the UK. And for that they would have to probably go on hunger strike or stay there for a few weeks.
So we will see.
They are claiming that the current redundancy packages offered would cost the company just €600,000 and that Manny Fontenia-Novoa, the Thomas Cook CEO, gave himself a bonus of €7m, and 34% pay rise, last year.
Of course he did, the f*cker. I hope that that little nugget gets reported on as well by the Irish media (fat chance, though).
Simon – can you not see any reason why employees (and us as fellow citizens) might not feel aggrieved by this type of carry-on, blackmailing your own desperate employees?
Mark,
In the early 1980s there was a spate of ‘sit-ins’ and factory occupations by workers trying to prevent closures and/or get decent redundancy terms. I think Dunlops tyre factory in Cork may have been one of them and a Dublin grain store if I remember correctly. There was a sort of copy-cat element to it, but as a tactic it died out relatively quickly. Then last year we had the Waterford Crystal situation. It always ends the same way – the workers leave, usually on foot of a Court Order, and what was going to happen happens anyway.
You have to feel for the Thomas Cook workers. They’re probably the sort of women who wouldn’t dream of throwing a sweet paper on the street, never mind breaking any other law and much the same would apply to most workers who feel driven to taking this form of action. As for what they’ll get out of it, probably very little for themselves; but it may cause other unscrupulous employers to think twice before trampling over deals and commitments they have entered into with their workforce simply because they think they can get away with it.
There will probably be more of these incidents, but the frequency will peter out over time not least because the first one is always a media sensation, but by the time you get to the tenth, the media aren’t that bothered because the ‘news value’ has diminished.
EWI the amount of stuff people in Ireland are not aggrieved by (how long was water in Ennis been on boil notice? 4 years.) suggests this story will lead to nothing.