I wish to share my time with Deputy O'Rourke.
Adjournment Debate. - Tallaght (Dublin) Plant Workforce.
I am sure that is agreed.
I welcome the opportunity to raise the issue of the Packard Electric workforce on the Adjournment. It is six weeks since the closure of Packard was announced but it is only now that the workforce is beginning to realise the reality of what is involved. Last night 58 workers on what is known as the "twilight shift" were made redundant, 295 workers will be made redundant tomorrow and a further 50 will be made redundant next week. This will continue until all 800 workers are laid off by early July.
I know of no other workforce which has made as many sacrifices in recent years in order to save and protect their jobs as the Packard workforce. If it was not for these sacrifices, which included foregoing two wage increases under the Programme for Economic and Social Progress and the Programme for Competitiveness and Work and working overtime without additional earnings, this plant would have been closed long ago. We are talking about workers on low levels of pay. Given the penal levels of tax, many of them might have been better off consigned to a life on the dole and may have been tempted to opt for such a life. The average age of these dedicated works is 40-50 years, they are mainly general operatives and most of them are women.
As the task force report states, the workers are frustrated and disillustioned not only because of the loss of their jobs but also because of the disgraceful way in which they have been treated by the management of this multinational company. I do not take sides in industrial disputes but from experience — I do not have enormous personal experience but I have experience in terms of what I know and read about — I know of no other case where workers have been treated so badly and where management, at a distance, failed to communicate and co-operate with the very people who had made the plant and company a success.
For those and many other reasons the workers rightly feel that the severance terms do not meet their entitlements. We have been waiting for some time for the Labour Court deliberations on this matter. The Minister may be able to tell us whether the Labour Court has concluded its deliberations and, it not, I hope they will be brought to a conclusion speedily because the workers are wondering what they should do and are seriously bewildered.
I am usually sceptical about task forces but I am pleased that the task force set up to deal with the wreckage which will flow from Packard reported speedily. I am impressed with its comprehensive report which covers many different aspects. What pleases me most is that it believes many workers will get alternative employment. It has identified 500 new jobs which will come on stream in the locality over the next year and it believes that with some training many Packard workers have the skills base to fill these jobs. It also recommends that the regional technical college should offer educational and vocational training courses for these workers. We must give these people hope. When the closure of the plant was initially announced many of the workers felt they had no future. While many Packard workers may never get another job we must not let them lose hope of securing alternative employment. I am pleased that the task force looked at the suppliers and subcontractors and sees possibilities of them getting work with other Packard plants in Europe and of being able to employ some of the former workers.
We must move away in the economy from a scenario where a person loses all opportunities once he loses his job. We must deal with issues such as taxation policy, education, training and the nature of mix of the industrial base if we want to ensure that the transition from one job to another is not as difficult as it is at present for general operatives. The task force highlights ways of dealing with problems of this kind.
Although the management of Packard in Dusseldorf has given an undertaking that it will not dispose of the plant for two years I am concerned that this is a verbal undertaking. Given the way management has behaved in the past I would not have any confidence in a verbal undertaking. The IDA and the Government must move quickly to ensure that the undertaking becomes a written undertaking so that an alternaive industry can be found for the plant. I hope the Minister will report to the House on the timescale for the implementation of the task force report and the severance package being offered and say whether the Labour Court has finalised its deliberations or when it is likely to do so.
I thank Deputy Harney for sharing her time with me. I have been concerned for many years about the status of the workers in Packard and the way they have been treated. I understand the Labour Court was meant to report before the last "twilight shift" this evening and perhaps the Minister can say if it has done so.
I support the points made by Deputy Harney about the treatment of the workforce. There has not been a work stoppage in the plant since 1987, yet it has consistently been referred to as "the plant with difficulties". The workers, who are mostly women, have worked long hours and foregone wage increases under the Programme for Competitiveness and Work. Yet they were treated in an uncivilised and cruel fashion in the way they were told they would lose their jobs, while over the past two years they endured great uncertainty about their future.
I commend the task force on its expeditious report. I hope extra money will be provided and that the agencies identified in the report will not be required to undertake all this work out of their current income; they clearly need additional resources. The workers have been treated in a casual and cruel way by the management over the years and even at the 11th hour they are not being allowed to leave the plant in a dignified way. It is conducted with uncertainty and is a very callous way of treating them.
I hope the Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise and Employment will be able to inform the House this afternoon of movement on the Labour Court recommendations.
I share both Deputies' concerns about the imminent redundancies at Tallaght arising from the closure decision by Packard Electric (Ireland) Ltd. I have had formal meetings and numerous contacts with both unions and company since the decision was announced on 29 April. On 30 April I got Government approval to establish a task force whose remit was to help locate alternative employment opportunities, to help source alternative industries for the Packard premises, to assist Packard workers in areas such as retraining and further education, support the expansion of small companies and address the loss of business to supply companies.
The trade unions and management agreed, under the auspices of the Labour Relations Commission, to refer a number of matters relating to the terms of severence — including the offer of five weeks redundancy per year of service inclusive of statutory entitlement — to the Labour Court for recommendation.
The Labour Court has issued its recommendations today to both parties and, inter alia, has recommended as follows: five weeks pay per year of service exclusive of statutory entitlements; for purposes of calculating redundancy payments the outstanding phases 1 and 2 of the Programme for Competitiveness and Work due on 1 March 1995 and 1 March 1996 respectively be included; that the company pay the four days holidays claimed; that, for purposes of reckoning service, the termination date for employees know in work should not be earlier than 7 July 1996 — this is to take account of employees on twilight shift etc. who may finish before that date, and the court would urge the company to give every assistance to employees in the area of financial advice and job replacement.
The Labour Court did not recommend a number of other claims submitted by the unions. On the separate referral, under section 20 of the Industrial Relations Act 1969, the court recommended that the company give the union, on the same basis, the information which it has already been given to Government officials concerning the economic facts surrounding the closure decision.
I understand that it is the company's intention that approximately 97 employees on twilight shift will finish work tonight and that over the weekend a further 297 employees, currently on lay-offs, will be made redundant.
I have also taken the interim report of the Tallaght Task Force, whose recommendations, as set out in tabular form, have yesterday been accepted by Government. I sincerely thank the chairman, Mr. Dan Tierney, and each individual members of the task force for the serious, expeditious and creative manner in which they went about their work.
It will be recalled that those recommendations include top IDA priority to be given to finding replacement industry; skills analysis of the workforce to be carried out — a recommendation already implemented; retraining, placement, education and counselling options for the workers; establishment of an enterprise fund and an enterprise support programme; survey of and support for Packard suppliers and sub-contractors; and two new enterprise centres for Tallaght, and support for SMEs.
The recommendations of the interim report are costed at £2.1 million over two years.
The Packard closure is a serious setback to the Tallaght-Clondalkin region and a cause of personal devastation for hundreds of families. However, I am convinced that, as a result of Government acceptance of the task force proposals and the ongoing work of the IDA and Forbairt, there is genuine cause for optimism about the future. Both parties, unions and management, will need an opportunity to study the recommendations of the Labour Court. However, I must appeal to both sides, when they have had an opportunity to study the recommendations, to accept them in accordance with long established precedent in Irish industrial relations.