THE Kerry Group is resisting attempts by the Department of Social Welfare to make it staff supermarket "demonstrators". Its farmer shareholders have just accepted a £130 million offer for the sale of their controlling interest in the company.
The demonstrators, most of whom are women, staff the company's merchandising stalls at major retail outlets, where customers are offered samples of Kerry Group produce in the hope that they will then purchase more.
The demonstrators are paid about £85 for a three day week that involves working from 10 a.m. to 8.30 p.m. on Thursdays and Fridays and from 10 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. on Saturdays. They receive about 30p a mile for travel expenses and are given specific targets, usually a 250 per cent increase in sales of the product being promoted.
Demonstrators are supplied with their uniforms, samples and equipment for preparing the samples, but they are designated as self employed and retained on one year contracts.
Because they are self employed, the demonstrators have to arrange their own insurance cover against accidents and ensure a substitute is available if they cannot work on a particular day. They do not have any holiday pay, maternity leave, minimum notice or other entitlements enjoyed by employees.
Four years ago, the Department of Social Welfare examined their situation and decided that they were effectively employees. Since then, the Kerry group subsidiary involved in the test case, Henry Denny and sons (Ireland) Ltd., has unsuccessfully appealed the decision as far as the High Court, where Miss Justice Carroll upheld the original decision of the Department. The group is now waiting to have a final appeal heard in the Supreme Court, which could take another 12 months.
The consequences of the case could be important for many part time workers, many of them women, says Mr Garret Fennell, a labour law expert with McCann Fitzgerald.
A spokesman for the Kerry Group said it has appealed the High Court decision "because we basically do not agree with the judgment. We . . . see the issue as a matter of principle."
There are no official figures for the number of self employed people whose income is dependent on individual contracts with one employer, but Department sources say there are probably at least 3,000 people in similar employments to Henry Denny and Sons in the food sector.
The practice of sub contracting is widespread in other sectors as well. More than half of the 80,000 strong workforce in the construction industry is officially designated as self employed and new tax procedures have been introduced to tackle the problem.