Former employees of Ispat say they are finding it hard to get jobs, despite the Tánaiste's claims, reports Chris Dooley
Former workers at the Ispat steel company in Cork have expressed anger at a claim by the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, that 75 per cent of them have found full-time jobs since the plant closed last year.
Ms Harney, who is also Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, said that the success rate of the former steel workers in finding new employment gave her hope for the prospects of those who recently lost their jobs at the State-owned Irish Fertilizer Industries.
But the experience of older members of the Ispat workforce in particular suggests that many of the IFI workers face a bleak future.
Workers at the former Irish Steel plant, which was also State-owned until bought by Ispat in 1995, say that a large proportion are still unemployed. Most of those who are working, they say, are in low-paid or part-time jobs which do not bear comparison with the wages and conditions of their previous employment.
Figures supplied to The Irish Times by FÁS, the State training and employment agency, suggest that Ms Harney's claim of 75 per cent finding full-time employment is not backed up by the data.
A spokesman for the Tánaiste, however, said that her comment was based directly on information given to her by FÁS.
The figures supplied to this newspaper indicate that, of 156 former steel workers tracked by FÁS, 132 were not claiming social welfare this month and were not on a FÁS course, and were therefore "presumed working".
However, other figures supplied by FÁS suggest that not all of those working were in full-time employment. A questionnaire sent to the 156 by the agency last month was returned by 52 of the former staff. Of these, 38 said that they were in either "full-time, part-time, temporary or contract work". Also, the FÁS figures covered less than half of the 409 workers who lost their jobs when Irish Steel closed in June 2001.
Mr Joe Meade, a general operative with 39 years' service at the steel plant, estimates that more than half of those who lost their jobs are still out of work.
Mr Meade, a member of SIPTU, was involved as a trade union representative in setting up FÁS training courses for the staff. Aged 59, he says that older workers like himself fared particularly badly after the closure. He had applied for about 40 jobs since last June and had 20 rejection letters - the others did not reply. He was now working three days a week from 7.30 a.m. to 10 p.m. as a security guard and was earning the current minimum wage of €6.35 an hour .
Mr Declan Barrett, who is 56 and was a SIPTU shop steward at the plant, with 15 years' service, said he was "disgusted" with the Tánaiste's comment, which suggested that the former Ispat workers were doing well since the closure. He had applied for about 15 jobs without success and was currently receiving disability benefit following an accident. "Our age is against us," he said.
In one instance, he had applied for a job with a company which had told him it had no vacancies at the time but would keep his application on file. The following day he opened a newspaper and saw an advertisement from the same company inviting people to attend "walk-in interviews".
Staff at IFI, which is closing with the loss of 620 jobs in Cork, Arklow and Belfast, had an average 29 years' service and, given their age profile, could face similar difficulties in getting new jobs.
A spokesman for Ms Harney said the point she had wished to make was that "we shouldn't be so quick to write people off" when they lost their jobs.
Ms Harney told RTÉ's Six-One News on October 15th, the day the IFI closure was announced, that she took "some hope from the fact that 75 per cent of the workers who lost their jobs in Irish Steel are now in full-time employment".
She hoped that the IFI workers, who would also be receiving assistance from FÁS, would find "the same kind of success rate". Her spokesman said she made it clear in a subsequent Dáil debate that she was referring to the 156 people registered with FÁS. A briefing note supplied by FÁS to the Tánaiste had said that, in a recent survey of the 156 workers registered with the agency, "75 per cent confirmed they were now in full-time employment".
Mr Meade said the reality was that most of those working were in poorly-paid or part-time jobs. Many were working in security jobs like his own. Workers were also aggrieved that, while the IFI staff were being promised a generous severance package, they had received little more than statutory redundancy.
Mr Meade, who joined the company in 1962, received a total payout of £27,082, (€34,281), including £14,732 (€18,648) in statutory redundancy. The total figure included a top-up payment of £3,000 (€3,797) from the EU, and a matching amount from the State, paid to each worker. He and Mr Barrett claim that they were "shabbily treated" by the State.
Ms Harney's spokesman said she had worked hard to secure the payment from Brussels and trade union representatives had acknowledged this.
A local Labour TD, Mr John Mulvihill, said that the severance pay to Irish Steel workers should be revisited in light of the package promised to IFI workers. Ms Harney's statements were "misleading", he claimed, as the wages concerned would not be "anywhere near" what they had received.