Gama management to meet with Siptu officials

Representatives of builders working for the Turkish construction firm Gama will meet with company management to discuss the firms…

Representatives of builders working for the Turkish construction firm Gama will meet with company management to discuss the firms plan to repatriate 140 employees to Turkey.

The company which is under investigation for alleged underpayment of migrant workers said on Monday that the work permits of 140 workers had expired and it would send them back to Turkey shortly.

There have been protests at sites operated by the company in Dublin and Galway following allegations of ongoing underpayment of Turkish workers on Gama sites in Ireland.

A Siptu spokesman said the union will oppose any move to send the workers back to Turkey.

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Company representatives met with the Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment Micheál Martin yesterday after he revealed he had received further complaints over the treatment of workers at the company. The Department is still awaiting clarification on a number of issues raised at that meeting.

The company has denied allegations of intimidation of employees at its Galway site. It was claimed that workers at the Tynagh Energy power plant were locked out of their living quarters after attending a protest against the company in Dublin on Sunday.

Gama is understood to have told labour inspectors that they were looking into the matter but also claimed some of its staff who have refused to participate in protests had been subject to intimidation.

The Department has warned the company that it expects to be informed in advance of any plans by the company to move workers to Turkey or elsewhere.

Gama has been at the centre of controversy since February when Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins made allegations in the Dáil about its treatment of its largely Turkish workforce in Ireland on short-term work permits.

The company has also denied allegations that it withheld cash payments to workers normally paid in addition to monies paid into Turkish of Dutch bank accounts.