Siptu members at Carroll’s Cuisine, the packaged meats and ready meals supplier, are to stage further work stoppages on Friday and Saturday in a dispute over pay and conditions as well as union recognition.
More than 100 of the company’s production line staff, the majority of them migrant workers, are said to have taken part in strike action last weekend.
Despite engagement by management with the company’s staff representative group earlier this week, the union says no substantial progress has been made on the issues involved since those stoppages.
“We’ve been told there were vague enough commitments on processes regarding pay and conditions that would take time to work through but there has been nothing to us directly and no progress on the issue of recognition, said senior Siptu private sector organiser, Neil McGowan.
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The new stoppages will involve production line staff with the union saying they will strike between 7am and 7pm on each of the two days.
The union said that aside from the issue of recognition, it has sought to engage on issue of low pay and related conditions but without success.
“We’re looking for the Living Wage (he puts it at €15.40) to be the basic rate and for cuts applied to the annual leave and sick pay entitlements applied to new entrants to be reversed,” he says. “But we haven’t had any engagement this week.”
He described the workers involved as “a determined bunch”.
Mr McGowan criticised the industrial framework in Ireland which, he said, has left the staff at Carroll’s “with no other option than taking industrial action to secure fair pay and union recognition””
Carroll’s is part of the privately owned Canadian Sofina Foods Group which operates 44 plants and employs 13,000 people internationally. It was approached for comment.
