NEVILLES, a Cork bakery that supplies more than half the Dunnes Stores outlets nationally, issued protective notice to its staff and shut down yesterday morning.
Support from the public for the Dunnes Stores workers was high. Only a handful of shoppers passed the pickets on the seven. Dunnes Stores outlets in Cork city on Monday and none of the stores opened yesterday.
Morale among the 1,150 Dunnes employees was also good and those rostered for picket duty turned up as planned, according to officials of Mandate and SIPTU that represent them.
Requests for passing motorists to "honk their horn" if they supported the workers were met with an ear-shattering response in many cases, while pedestrians stopped to offer verbal support to the strikers carrying their posters.
Union officials warned that the attitude of Dunnes management combined with public support had hardened their resolve. "It will take more to settle this dispute now than what was put on the table at the weekend and which we were willing to accept at the time. The workers are now talking about settling for nothing less than the full implementation of the Labour Court agreement," said one official.
Nevilles Bakery in Macroom issued protective notice to its 82 employees. Bread for its other customers was produced in its Dublin plant.
Mandate now represents 800 of the 1,150 of Dunnes Stores workers in Cork. Large numbers left SIPTU for Mandate before last year's strike, saying they wanted more militant action. As a result Mandate now represents workers in five of the seven Cork stores, although fewer than 100 of these are full-time permanent employees.
A Mandate official in Cork, Mr Jim O'Connell, said the striking workers "are furious with the way the negotiations turned out and had no hesitation in taking this action. They are determined that the agreement worked out with the Labour Court will be enforced.
"After all, there are many clauses in it that did not suit the workers but they were willing to compromise. They want Dunnes management to do the same," he said.
A SIPTU branch secretary, Mr G Meaty, who represents 350 workers in the North Main Street and Ballyvolane stores, said they were making every effort to ensure the strike did not affect the smaller retailers in what were Dunnes Stores shopping centres.
"We are not placing pickets outside the premises on the street but confining them to the entrance to Dunnes Stores and we would appeal to shoppers to patronise these retailers as usual," he said.
"Dunnes were prepared for the strike and did not seem to be as hopeful as we were that the week-end talks would succeed in averting the action," said Mr O'Connell of Mandate.