Ireland: Occupying workers violently evicted

Thirty Thomas Cook workers involved in a four-day occupation of the travel companies Graffon Street premises in Dublin were forcibly evicted by police., the August 4 Irish Times said.

The workers are in dispute with Thomas Cook over redundancy packages resulting from the office's planned closure.

The Irish Times said staff were seeking a deal that would give them eight weeks redundancy pay per year of service. Thomas Cook is only offering five weeks per year.

The article said: "The former workers claim that Thomas Cook is a hugely profitable company which paid its chief executive £7 million last year and can afford an enhanced redundancy deal."

The trade union Unite said the workers' arrest was "a dark stain on the history of industrial relations in Ireland".

Unite regional secretary Jimmy Kelly said: "These are ordinary working people standing up for their rights. They have a right to be treated with respect and for their employer to hold to a standard of engagement that, in this case, has merely been cast aside."

A High Court judge released the arrested workers the following day on the grounds they agreed not to resume the occupation. A nine-month pregnant former employee, who was the first arrested by police, was whisked straight to hospital following the raid, where she gave birth to a baby girl.

The judge acknowledged the workers had been badly treated, the Irish Times said.

From GLW issue 806