A GROUP OF GREENCORE workers based in Hull, England held a demonstration outside the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine in Dublin today to highlight their pay concerns with the company.
The group of workers, who are supported by the Unite trade union, are based at the Greencore Cakes and Desserts factory in Yorkshire.
Today they delivered a petition to senior Greencore management at the company’s head office in Santry and to the Department of Agriculture calling for action against what they said was an ‘attack’ on workers’ wages.
The Hull workers say their contracts were cut in June 2011 so that overtime or shift pay were abolished and they are not paid extra for working on bank holidays. They say that the company agreed with the Unite trade union to reinstate their previous pay terms and conditions in October 2011, but have not done so.
Unite Irish Regional Secretary Jimmy Kelly said today that as Greencore is an Irish company, “we would expect that once senior management and the Government here as a major shareholder hear the extent of the abuse of industrial relations practices being exercised in their name that a resolution will be found”.
A spokesperson for Unite said that Hull workers are currently being balloted by postal vote for taking industrial action over the issue and that the results of that vote will be known in the coming weeks.
Sinn Féin spokesperson on workers’ rights Senator David Cullinane urged Greencore to reinstate the wage conditions. He noted that the Greencore CEO is the brother of Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney and said that “the government are in an excellent position to apply pressure to the company to ensure that the workers get what they are entitled to”.
The company could not be reached for comment this evening.
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