Donegal jobs Task Force begins work

The Task Force, established by the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, to address future job losses at Fruit of the Loom in Donegal has begun its work.

The group, which is headed by Donegal County Manager, Mr Michael McCloone, and comprises representatives of SIPTU, IBEC and IDA Ireland, has initiated a series of meetings with the up to 50 workers at the Dungloe plant which is to close at the end of the month.

It is seeking to establish suitable retraining programmes for the workers to equip them with the necessary skills to find other employment in the locality. SIPTU Donegal secretary, Mr Sean Reilly, said there was "great optimism" about the initiative.

However, continuing uncertainty surrounding up to 700 job losses from Fruit of the Loom's 2,500 workforce is said to be hampering its work, and is also damaging morale among the group's employees.

SIPTU regional secretary, Mr George Hunter, who is a member of the Task Force, wrote to the Fruit of the Loom chief operations executive, Mr Bill Farley, urging him to outline the company's plans in relation to its workforce to give the Task Force an opportunity to address any retraining needs ahead of any lay offs.

The Task Force is based on the model used to address job losses at the Asahi plant at Ballina, Co Mayo, earlier this year.

Meanwhile, the redundancy package to be paid to the workers at the Dungloe plant is still the subject of negotiations between SIPTU and Fruit of the Loom management. The company has further reduced the working week for up to 300 workers at its sewing plants at Malin Head and Raphoe. It has been cut from three days to two days because of the build up of stocks of T-shirts.

A further 800 employees are on a three day week, while the remaining 1,100 are still working full-time. The company has assured SIPTU that the short-term working is unrelated to any job cuts and aims to reintroduce full production in the new year.

The delay in the decision on the 700 or so jobs in the low margin T-shirt sewing operations is said to have severely dented staff morale, and is also affecting production output.