Shop stewards for former Debenhams employees are to recommend rejection of proposals aimed at resolving their long-running dispute over redundancy payments.
The proposals formulated by mediator and Labour court Chairman Kevin Foley would see the Government establishing a €3 million fund for training, up-skilling and business start-ups for the 1,200 former employees who lost their jobs when the Debenhams Irish operation went into liquidation last April.
However, the potential deal did not deliver any cash payments to the workers who have been demanding the enhanced redundancy terms provided for under a 2016 collective agreement.
Mr Foley found that the collective agreement no longer had legal application following the insolvency, and that the current legal framework did not permit an alternative settlement.
In a statement issued tonight, the shop stewards said the prospect of returning to the picket line in the new year was not an easy one.
However, they went on: "We cannot in all conscience settle for an offer which in practical terms does not offer a cent beyond our statutory minimum entitlements out of the liquidation of the stock and is therefore less even than the derisory offer which we rejected back in September."
They said they were essentially being asked to vote for a poorly defined training fund, and suggested that they were already entitled to such training.
They described it as impractical as some workers had moved on to new jobs, or were approaching retirement where there would be no gain to be made from retraining.
The shop stewards also queried why the €3 million training fund could not simply be used to boost their redundancy payments.
"If we were to accept this bad offer it would set a bad precedent for other workers such as our colleagues in Arcadia who are in a similar position to us and potentially thousands more workers in retail and other vulnerable sectors," the shop stewards added.
They concluded by calling on the Government to legislate in the new year "post haste" and to advance to Debenhams workers and others in similar situations "... decent settlements in line with what our former employers agreed with our union".
The former Debenhams employees are due to ballot on the Foley proposals over the coming weeks.
