Thomas Cook workers defy court order

FORMER THOMAS Cook employees have said they will defy a High Court ruling which has ordered them to vacate premises in Dublin city centre by 5pm today.

The dispute, between Thomas Cook and 77 staff, who are being made redundant, escalated on Friday when staff staged a sit-in at the premises in Grafton Street and Direct Holidays, a subsidiary of Thomas Cook, in Talbot Street.

The workers were served with a temporary High Court injunction on Saturday, but have refused to leave.

A full High Court hearing will take place at 11am today.

The Transport Salaried Staffs Association (TSSA) is organising a protest outside the Grafton Street branch to take place at 10.30am this morning.

Workers want Thomas Cook to make an improved redundancy offer of eight weeks for each year of service. The company is offering five weeks for each year of service.

Staff, who are all members of the TSSA, voted unanimously for strike action when the company announced that it was going to close the two shops and make all the staff redundant.

The shops were due to close at the end of August, but management moved on Friday to close them immediately, sparking the sit-in.

Thomas Cook Mainstream Travel chief executive Pete Constanti said he was “outraged” and accused the TSSA and its general secretary Gerry Doherty of “dirty tactics”.

“Thomas Cook is offering far more than it is legally required to do in respect of a redundancy package and we are confident that we’ve taken every possible step to ensure that this unfortunate decision has been handled as sensitively as possible,” he added.

Mr Doherty said the only dirty tactics were being employed by the company.

“One woman got a letter on Friday to say that she was being offered €109,000 redundancy and, if she did not accept it, she would only get statutory redundancy which is just €22,000. And they accuse us of dirty tactics,” he said.

“All we are looking for is a decent severance package for our employees at a time of severe economic hardship and when the company can pay its chief executive Manny Fontenla-Novoa £7 million [€8.3 million] a year.”

Mr Doherty added that the TSSA would seek to escalate the action to stage a union boycott of Thomas Cook shops in Northern Ireland and Britain.

Antoinette Shevlin said they were prepared to continue the sit-in irrespective of any decision taken by the High Court.

“We haven’t slept at all,” she said. “We were up all night guarding the perimeter in case the balliffs came. We’re here until the bitter end.

“We have invited Thomas Cook to come and speak to us, but they haven’t. The ball is in their court. All they have to do is get in touch with us again.”

Among those involved in the sit- in at Grafton Street is Avril Boyne, an employee who is more than eight months pregnant.

The Unite trade union has expressed solidarity with the workers staging the sit-in. Unite regional secretary Jimmy Kelly said the workers had been “treated abysmally” and that sit-ins had led to better terms and conditions at Waterford Crystal and at Visteon in Belfast.

“Employers have to recognise that fair treatment for staff has to be part of any plan they put forward in these difficult times,” he said.