Turkish workers yesterday occupied part of a Gama Construction site in Dublin as tensions mounted over its alleged mistreatment of employees.
The company is to hold a meeting today with workers' representatives and officials from their union, Siptu, which is to seek assurances on a range of issues.
These will include a demand that workers be given immediate access to money held in their names in Dutch bank accounts. The union is also seeking to prevent the company repatriating to Turkey 140 employees whose work permits have expired.
Today's meeting with Siptu takes place in a deteriorating atmosphere, with both sides levelling claims of intimidation at the other.Siptu construction branch secretary Eric Fleming said the union would be seeking agreement on a "no victimisation" clause.
"The workers say that since their protest started on Monday they have been inundated with calls from their families at home in Turkey complaining of a high level of intimidation," he said.
However, Gama says the only intimidation it is aware of is directed at workers refusing to participate in protests. In a statement yesterday, it said a group of workers had occupied a portion of the Balgaddy site. "A number of workers who did not wish to participate were initially locked in by the occupiers but [ were] subsequently released. Further workers who did not wish to participate left the site when the occupation began."
The company said it was greatly concerned for the welfare of the employees occupying the site and sympathised with their concerns and fears.
"These fears have been heightened by parties outside of Gama who now exercise a high degree of control over these workers. Regrettably, this is inhibiting the company's ability to deal with the workers' concerns."
Mr Fleming said the union would be seeking exact details of the workers' bank accounts in the Netherlands at today's "showdown meeting". It would also ask that representatives of Finansbank in Amsterdam, where the accounts are held, come to Dublin immediately "to explain to workers the status of their accounts and how they can get their money".
Gama has said it is writing to its employees in Turkish to explain how they could access the accounts. This was being done "to avoid any further confusion".
The company has been the subject of an investigation by labour inspectors from the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment since Socialist TD Joe Higgins made allegations in the Dáil in February about its activities.
He claimed the company demanded "grotesque" working hours, paid unskilled staff €2-€3 an hour and housed workers in "company barracks". Gama denied the claims, although it later admitted it had underpaid workers last year due to "an error".
