SIPTU organised and/or participated in delegations to politicians including the Tanaiste and leaders of Fine Gael and Labour; protest rallies and political lobbying to secure implementation of the Labour Court recommendation. We met the receiver on several occasions, did numerous interviews highlighting the case for the workers on local radio stations and RTE and in regional and national newspapers.
Sir, - A report by Marie O'Halloran in your edition of October 5th quoted a former employee of Peerless Rugs who was highly critical of SIPTU's role in supporting the workers in that company.
The facts are as follows. For many years Peerless Rugs in Athy was one of the most active sections in SIPTU's midlands region. The union assigned two full-time officials to this section and in most negotiations, these officials were joined by the regional secretary. The huge volume of negotiations and referrals to conciliation conferences, Labour Court hearings, rights commissioner hearings and employment appeals tribunals on their behalf is a matter of record.
When Peerless Rugs was placed in receivership in July 2001 the workers decided to occupy the plant. Although the workers understood that as a trade union SIPTU could not organise or direct such an action without being in breach of the Industrial Relations Act, we continued to provide them with our services, support and financial resources and arranged for the Labour Court to hear their case for an ex-gratia redundancy payment. Based on our arguments, we secured a recommendation for three weeks' pay per year of service.
It is true that after several months of occupying the plant to no avail, the three SIPTU officials advised Peerless Rugs workers that their action was unlikely to force the receiver to give them an ex-gratia settlement - as he is precluded from doing so under statute - and that the only realistic course of action was to seek a change in the level of statutory redundancy.
For well over a year now SIPTU has been engaged in a multi-layered campaign to increase statutory redundancy payments for all workers. In addition to extensive lobbying of Government and politicians, we were also instrumental in organising the national day of protest on October 4th.
It is understandable that workers who have been treated as badly as the Peerless Rugs employees would feel frustrated at the lack of progress on their concerns. But to suggest that SIPTU had "walked away" from the Peerless Rugs workers, on a day when we were participating in a major national rally in their support, simply does not stand up to scrutiny. - Yours, etc.,
MIKE JENNINGS, Regional Secretary, SIPTU, Liberty Hall, Dublin 1.