“Blame For The Debenhams Dispute Lies With The Political Establishment” - Mickey Moran
Éirígí General Secretary Mickey Moran has accused Michéal Martin of playing a ‘cynical blame game’ to divert attention from the failure of the political establishment to protect workers from unscrupulous employers.
Moran’s comments came on a day that KPMG withdrew a paltry ‘final settlement’ offer from the negotiation table and Gardaí arrested a number of Debenhams workers for occupying their former workplace.
Speaking from Athlone, Moran said, “Micheál Martin today described the treatment of the Debenhams workers as ‘shoddy, shabby and unacceptable’, while also calling on the liquidators KPMG to refrain from any further ‘provocative’ action.
This was an utterly transparent effort by Martin to shift the blame for the Debenhams dispute away from the political establishment and onto Debenhams and KPMG.
Martin was speaking as if he was an neutral observer to a dispute into which he had no input. In reality the blame for the Debenhams dispute lies squarely with the pro-capitalist political establishment of which Martin is a leading figure.”
Mickey Moran (far left) showing his support with other Éirígí activists for the Debebhams workers in Athlone.
Moran continued by highlighting the failures of successive governments to protect workers,
“For years the trade union movement have been calling for the introduction of watertight legislation to prevent unscrupulous employers from declaring ‘tactical’ bankruptcies to avoid paying out proper redundancy payments and other debts.
If the recommendations of the 2016 Duff-Cahill report has been acted upon, it would have been far more difficult for Debenhams to renege on the redundancy agreement that they had previously agreed with their Irish workers.
Under Martin’s leadership, Fianna Fail propped up the Fine Gael government that ignored the Duff-Cahill recommendations and thus maintained the legal space for Debenhams to subsequently shaft their workers.
Martin is more interested in playing cynical blame games to protect the political establishment than doing something useful to help the hundreds of Debenhams workers who are being denied the redundancy package to which they are entitled.”
Moran concluded by pledging Éirígí’s support for the Debenhams workers,
I want to take this opportunity to again state Éirígí’s support for the Debenhams workers and their fight for a fair redundancy package based on four weeks pay for every year of service.
We further support the right of the workers to take peaceful direct action to prevent Debenhams, KPMG or others from removing stock or other valuable assets from stores before a fair settlement has been reached.”