Vol. 73/No. 8      March 2, 2009

Mark Anderson

February 4 demonstration by Waterford Crystal workers in Ireland against plant closing

The plant was placed in receivership January 5. On January 30, acting on rumors that the plant was about to be shut and they would lose their jobs, workers occupied the visitor showroom. Later that day the accountants made an official announcement that production would be stopped immediately and 480 of some 700 workers laid off.

“The workers were so angry they weren’t going to be stopped by anybody,” said Tony Kelly a shop steward for the Unite union, which represents 90 percent of the workers in the plant. Kelly said workers, after a brief tussle with security guards, took over the plant’s visitors center. “We got text messages saying we were sitting in … so we came down, the word went round,” said Liz Sullivan, a packer at the plant for 25 years.

Some workers heard they had lost their jobs over the radio. “It was spontaneous. People thought the best place to be was at the factory not sitting at home,” said Jimmy Kelly, Irish regional secretary for the UK-based Unite.

The plant is a subsidiary of Waterford Wedgewood, which also has a porcelain factory in the United Kingdom and manufacturing sites in other countries. Under the terms of receivership—a form of bankruptcy aimed at protecting capitalists’ interests—the company’s operations in Ireland were taken over by accountants with the Deloitte Ireland firm.

So far police or security guards have made no efforts to retake the facility, Tony Kelly said. Signs such as “United we stand divided we fall” and “Workers united will never be defeated” were chalked on menu blackboards in the center’s cafeteria, where occupying workers gathered and relaxed, and were displayed on banners outside.

A solidarity rally of 2,000 took place at the factory the day after the occupation started, and some 6,000 protested in Waterford, a city of 50,000, February 4 in solidarity with the action. Current and former workers and those from other factories joined the march, organized by the Waterford Council of Trade Unions, which went through the town culminating in a rally at the factory, reported the Irish Times.

At a general meeting February 12, some 600 union members voted to continue the occupation and to support union officials pursuing a possible buyout deal by KPS Capital, one of two U.S. firms considering buying the company. The actual extent of job cuts, compensation packages, and pension payments for the workers under any deal, however, remains unclear.

“There will be more twists and turns in this,” Tony Kelly said. One element of the KPS buyout proposal that has been reported is a one-time payment of 10 million euros to be divided up among workers who lose their jobs. The Irish Times said this could amount to as little as 12,000 euros for each worker (1 euro=US$1.26).

“We’ll keep fighting as long as we can for what we are entitled to. The carrots they’ve offered so far aren’t big enough,” one occupying worker who asked that his name not be used told the Militant. “At the moment our dignity is all we have left,” explained another worker. Both are experienced glass cutters who like many at the plant have worked for close to 40 years or more for the company and have seen commitments agreed to by the employer vanish into thin air.

Eugene Wall explained that he stood to lose five years of a deferred pension scheme worth some 10,000 euros a year. Many had signed up for an early retirement agreement, which has now been ripped up by the bosses. Meanwhile, according to an Irish Times report in January, the company pension fund has an 111 million euro deficit, with workers likely to lose everything they had paid in. There is no state-funded pension protection scheme safety net.

Messages of solidarity and donations for the workers at Waterford Crystal can be sent to: Walter Cullen, Unite Hall, Keyzer Street, Waterford, Co. Waterford, Ireland. The union can also be reach by phone at +353 5187 5438; fax: +353 5187 8401; and email: walter.cullen@unitetheunion.com

Caroline Bellamy and Alex Xezonakis contributed to this article.  
 
 
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