Clonakilty job losses
``In this day and age, with multinational companies reaching into the smallest corners of our rural communities, we really have to impose some protection for our people against the fly by night practices of global capitalism,'' says Councillor Cionnaith Ó Súilleabháin from Clonakilty.
Some six months ago, a company called clickthebutton.com moved in to the West Cork Technology Park in Clonakilty. They took on 43 people. The company offered the chance to graduates in IT skills to work and remain in West Cork. Rates of pay for this skilled work were extremely low, at £11,000 to £12,000 for full time jobs, but there was the promise after six months probationary period, that the workers would get an immediate rise of £2,000 per annum.
Just before the six-month probationary period was up, the workers were told that the dot com company was closing down, and they had five minutes to leave. This left many workers with mortgages, car loans, holiday loans, and other debts they built up on the basis of expectations that their jobs were secure. Suddenly, they were gone without so much as a by your leave, or a word of warning.
``It has not been announced what incentives the company may have received to settle for a few months in our Technology Park unit, or just why companies are allowed to set up here, without unions, or any provision for workers' rights and entitlements, but these are questions that have to be asked,'' says Ó Súilleabháin.
``It is not enough,'' says Cionnaith Ó Súilleabháin, ``that we in the UDC express our sympathy to these people for the shabby way they have been treated. We urgently need to implement some form of social accountability on companies which come into our Technology Park units.
``We need to insist that there be a clause in their contract which ensures a measure of social responsibility, so that future companies do not behave in this way towards their workers and that our whole community is consulted about the provisions and standards laid down in such a clause.
``A six-month cheap supply of data processing work may be very good short term business for the company, but it has lifelong effects on people who take up jobs and lose them. I think it is up to our local Task Force, and John Flemming who is the developer of these units, to ensure proper conditions, including union membership, obligatory consultation between management and workers, adequate notice of impending closure and a commitment to fund retraining for those whose careers are cut short by sudden closure.
``In most other EU countries, there is a commitment to lifelong education, with continuing programmes for all workers for retraining, up-skilling, and developing their interest and abilities. There is no such culture in Ireland. We need to challenge this and with it the whole notion of companies coming in, taking government grants, subsidies and tax relief, and making no commitment whatever to their workers. This is a culture which we, who are involved in local government, can do much to change. But we need to start, unless Ireland is to remain the banana republic of the EU.''
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