A SINN FÉIN TD has made a Dáil appeal on behalf of four Limerick workers who, she claimed, were unfairly dismissed from their jobs with a construction company.
Deputy Louise O’Reilly asked the Government to intervene on behalf of the four workers with their former employers, Murphy International, with whom the Government has contracts.
All four, she said, are members of the UNITE trade union and one was a UNITE shop steward. All were dismissed before Christmas.
“They were unfairly victimised, targeted, and singled out for what was legitimate trade union activity,” she told the Dáil.
“Our workplaces will never be safe for workers if their representatives are not protected from victimisation.
“Between them, they had fifty years of service and as I understand it without any blemish of any record. They had given good and loyal service to that company.”
Deputy O’Reilly said that because the workers had been dismissed, they had immense trouble getting social welfare benefits and had to go through a months long appeal process.
She said that the workers involved had “not been organising for a massive pay increase, they were organising simply to have the recognised rates for the job applied to them and for the terms and conditions that go along with that, which they didn’t have”.
“I understand that there is a limit to what government can do but I also understand that no government should stand over treatment like this while the same government is engaged in contracts with the company.
“These men were dismissed for legitimate trade union activity.
“The company are exploiting a fairly significant shortfall in the unfair dismissal legislation. It’s nearly worth an employer’s time taking a chance on it because the compensation is so small for a worker and it’s really hard to prove.”
Minister of State Jennifer Carroll McNeil said that she had a difficulty in responding to Deputy O’Reilly’s request.
“This is not a court and I’m not sure this is a matter for this chamber when there are potentially live matters at stake for a different resolution body and where there are reputational issues involved.”
She said the chamber is a place where dispute resolution generally can be discussed but the “State provides industrial relations dispute resolution mechanisms”, backed up with legislation, to resolve individual claims.
She said she did not want to risk prejudicing any party in any industrial relations case which may arise in the future.
But Deputy O’Reilly said that the resolution process had effectively failed the workers who will “have to wait a very long time for any resolution while they have been effectively locked out of their workplace. They just want to go back to their jobs, earning wages to keep body and soul together.”
