PICKETS WERE yesterday placed in Cork, Tuam, Waterford, Tipperary and Cork in a dispute over plans to outsource about 130 jobs.
Coca-Cola HBC Ireland last night urged the union Siptu to re-enter talks and end its strike. Company managing director Gokhan Bilgic said the industrial action was “regrettable’’, but its decision to outsource logistics operations was in the best interests of the company and staff.
The company said a minority of its 1,250 employees were involved in the action.
The jobs at the centre of the out-sourcing dispute are mainly in distribution and warehousing.
Siptu has said staff last week received letters from three private transport companies taking over the work, which offered them new employment on greatly inferior terms and conditions.
Mr Bilgic said the company was, and had been, fully compliant with due process at all times, and had offered a significant redundancy package or the option to transfer to the external logistics companies, which would be carrying out the work from September 8th.
The company said it was offering a package of six weeks per year of service up to €125,000, or the option to transfer to the third-party logistics providers.
Siptu last night rejected claims that it was not prepared to engage in talks. Siptu national industrial secretary Gerry McCormack said Mr Bilgic had acknowledged in media interviews that “he is not prepared to discuss saving jobs, only the terms on which he is making workers redundant”.
“Siptu is more than willing to attend talks with the company at the Labour Relations Commission, and to lift pickets on the company’s warehouse and distribution depots, if Mr Bilgic lifts his precondition on talks that we accept our 130 members’ jobs are gone.”
Workers in Cork said they had been told they must move to Thurles to keep their jobs.
Speaking on the picket line yesterday, husband and wife Dave and Tina Deasy from Killeens, Co Cork, who have worked at the plant for 25 years between them, said a move to Thurles would mean reduced pay and job security. “We have a two-year-old daughter and a mortgage, and there would be no job security,” Ms Deasy said.
Christy O’Sullivan, from Blarney Road, has worked as a lorry driver at the plant for the past 37 years. “The company has never acted like this before. They are making a profit. I might understand their actions if they were in difficulty.”
In Tuam, one of the Siptu drivers taking part in the strike, Eugene Carty, said: “All we want is to hold on to our jobs, and we have got massive support from staff in sales and administration as well.
“Tuam cannot afford to lose these 27 jobs, and apart from those affected by the move, we also have Coke workers from as far north as Donegal and Sligo here on the picket lines today.”
