THE MAIN beef supplier for McDonald’s restaurants in Europe has ruthlessly slashed the pay of workers who could not get to work during the ‘big freeze’ of the week before last. Dawn Meats in the Republic of Ireland has told staff at its nine meat-processing facilities they were automatically being deducted two days’ annual leave to cover the period when a status-red weather warning was in place across the State.
Employees said there was little or no consultation before the announcement was made last week and expressed dismay at losing two days’ holidays through no fault of their own. A Dawn Meats spokesman said: ‘Following the advice of the National Emergency Co-ordination Group, production was suspended across all Dawn Meats sites in Ireland from Thursday afternoon and through Friday of last week.
‘In respect of this downtime – enforced by weather events outside our control – team members have access to normal annual leave arrangements and scope to work additional hours as we replenish supplies for our customers in the coming days and weeks. These arrangements are in line with norms in the food-processing sector.’
The move was condemned by the union SIPTU’s organiser for the agriculture, ingredients, food and drink sector Michael Browne, who denied that it was the norm across the sector and said that many of the union’s members working at other meat-processing facilities had been told they would be paid as normal. ‘Many of the people affected here would not be the highest-paid staff in this company and nor would they have the best terms and conditions, so what we are seeing is the people who can least afford it being asked to pay the most,’ he said.
SIPTU members have called for the adoption of a uniform policy across several sectors of the economy during red weather alerts. It says this should be set up for the agriculture, food and drink manufacturing sectors.
It was said that this would help with issues such as time off and payment during the period of a red weather alert. The decision was reached at a meeting of the union’s Agriculture, Food and Drink Manufacturing Sector at Liberty Hall in Dublin last Friday.
SIPTU’s organiser Browne, said: ‘Delegates raised the issue of the varying ways in which the impact of a red weather alert is dealt with in companies across the industry.
‘Following discussions, it was decided to call for the union to work with employers towards the adoption of a uniform policy approach to this issue across the sector. ‘This issue has of course become more important in light of the impact of Storm Emma and Storm Ophelia last October.’
He added: ‘SIPTU representatives will raise this issue with employers and their representative bodies in the coming days. ‘It is hoped that agreement can be found to work together on producing a policy approach to this issue which will be uniform across the sector.’
• The New French owner of the Ireland telecoms company Eir may axe up to 1,000 jobs, which is a third of the workforce, when they take over later this year. A number of sources believe that savage cuts over the coming year form part of a business plan drawn up by the new owner. An Eir spokesman declined to comment.
Union leaders are set to meet with new CEO designate Carolan Lennon later this week to discuss staff concerns. Iliad – owned by French telecoms billionaire Xavier Niel – is finalising its acquisition of the former state company from a collection of international funds and financial institutions.
Staff fears have been further stoked by controversy over a French television report into Iliad’s human resources practices at its call centres in that country.
That report claimed Iliad had reduced headcount by up to 60 per cent at a call centre, relying heavily on non-standard methods such as dismissal for disciplinary reasons. The company has consistently denied the report.
One trade union source said Eir had just finished its latest round of cuts, and he questioned how the business would function if the type of cuts now suggested were undertaken. Staff numbers at the company have fallen from a peak of 13,000 to just 3,000 now.
Iliad is in the process of gaining approvals from various regulatory bodies for its 770m euro takeover of Eir and has just won approval from the European Commission for the move. Unions at Eir have already raised major concerns with management over the fact that the company is not taking on apprentice engineers to replace the very large number of engineers that are due to retire this year and in subsequent years.
In January, Eir pulled out of the National Broadband Plan – and it is understood that the new French owners are preparing to further focus the business on urban rather than rural parts of Ireland.
Concern over big job cuts come as a small number of top Eir executives, including former CEO Richard Moat, prepare to share a windfall of up to 200m euros, triggered by the sale to Niel’s company.
Eugene Quinn of trade union Forsa said it had lodged a claim for an equivalent payout for ordinary staff, but that the company had not responded to this claim.
He said trade unions are ‘always prepared to look at business plans in a reasonable manner but any leaving would have to be voluntary.’
• Unions representing workers at Virgin Media have told the Labour Court that they are vehemently opposed to the introduction of performance related pay at the company. The unions, SIPTU and Unite, state that they are seeking straightforward pay increases and are vehemently opposed to the introduction of performance related pay and a benchmarking median developed by consultants Wills Tower being introduced.
The talks are to take place after the Labour Court referred the issue to the Commission. At the Labour Court, Virgin Media, owned by billionaire John Malone, stated that its parent company requires it to move to performance-related pay (PRP) model.
The company claims that PRP is the norm in the telecommunications sector and that it has operated a performance appraisal system for some time but is now looking to link that to pay. Virgin Media stated that it is ‘seeking to effect greater competitiveness and to incentivise its staff by applying performance-related pay increases rather than the historical application of a flat percentage increase across all unionised grades.’
The company claimed to the Labour Court that its proposal to move to PRP in 2018 ‘is realistic, reasonable and pragmatic’. But assistant SIPTU organiser Martin Mannion warned that he is not confident that the dispute can be resolved ‘and we could find ourselves in an industrial action situation’. Mannion said his members are getting angry and that SIPTU along with Unite, representing around a total of 400 workers, are ready to move into dispute.
