2nd March 2010 Growing concern for health of Green Isle Foods hunger striker and calls for company to accept Labour Court proposals
Fingal expected to join local authorities calling on Green Isle Foods to accept Labour Court Recommendation to end dispute and hunger strike March 2nd, 2010.
Dublin City Council unanimously adopted a motion last night expressing its support for the workers at the Green Isle Foods plant in Naas, Co Kildare, and calling on the company to ‘reinstate the men immediately and to engage with the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union, which represents the men, to resolve the dispute’. It was proposed by the Sinn Fein group.
Meanwhile Labour members of Fingal and South County Dublin county councils are to put similar motions to their meetings next week if the dispute remains unresolved. Patrick Nulty of Fingal County Council is calling on Green Isle to accept the Labour Court recommendation already accepted by the strikers’ union, the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union. The motion in South Dublin will be put forward by Dermot Looney.
Cork City Council is also expected to debate the Green Isle dispute at its meeting on Monday as concern grows for the health of the two hunger strikers, Jim Wyse now in his fourteenth day and John Guinan, on his seventh day without food. Another worker at the plant will join them tomorrow.
Talks resumed today between Green Isle Foods management and the TEEU.
The motion passed at the Dublin City Council last night was proposed by Councillor Larry O’Toole and his colleagues. It stated that the Council ‘expresses its support for the workers at the Green Isle Foods plant in Naas, Co Kildare, one of whom has now been on hunger strike for 12 days, who have been on strike for six months in protest at the firing of three of their colleagues;
‘Notes that the company has rejected proposals from the Labour Relations Commission and the National Implementation Body to resolve the dispute and rejected Labour Court recommendations to reinstate the men or compensate them;
‘Conscious that the company supplies many retail outlets operating in Dublin;
‘Calls on Green Isle Foods to reinstate the men immediately and to engage with the Technical, Engineering and Electrical Union, which represents the men, to resolve the dispute’
The motion proposed by Councillor Nulty for the meeting of Fingal County Council states that, ‘This Council is deeply concerned at the extreme hardship imposed on the 13 men still on strike on foot of the Green Isle Foods dispute and the distress caused, particularly to hunger strikers Jim Wyse and John Guinan.
‘This Council calls on Green Isle Foods and its parent company Northern Foods to accept Labour Court Recommendation LCR 19698 which will allow the dispute at the Naas plant to be resolved. The Technical Engineering and Electrical Union, which represents the strikers, has already accepted the terms of the Recommendation.'
Before entering talks today, TEEU General Secretary Designate Eamon Devoy said, “We are continuing to make every effort to resolve this dispute before it assumes more critical dimensions. I do not believe the company fully appreciates the wider implications it could have if we do not find a solution at this stage.”
The workers have been on the picket line for over six months protesting at the unfair dismissal of three colleagues and the refusal of the company to allow them union representation. The Labour Court recommended the full reinstatement of the dismissed men and said they should be paid €180,000 compensation if the company does not reinstate them.
The company only entered talks through third party mediators Bernard Durkan TD and Jack Wall TD after the hunger strike began. The men will not end the protest until a resolution of the dispute is achieved.
