We wish to express our support for and solidarity with the sit-in by workers at the Calcast factory in Campsie, Derry, N Ireland and demand that they receive a decent redundancy settlement.

The factory, which is owned by Montupet SA, is due to close and 102 workers are set to lose their jobs. On Monday 24 November 2008 the company announced that 90 workers were being made redundant, so avoiding a legal obligation to give 90 days notice of redundancy which would be triggered if more than 99 workers were involved.

The workers justly believe that the announcement of 90 redundancies is a cynical attempt by Montupet to avoid paying them for the 90 days notice period. All 102 workers will be losing their jobs. As a result they are only entitled to 30 days notice and the company has only offered 1 weeks pay for each year of employment, the legal minimum.

Compare this to the 6 weeks for each year of service that workers at Seagate in Limavady were offered when that factory closed earlier this year.

The workers estimate that paying them the full 90 days notice would cost Montupet in the region of 200,000. Montupet in Northern Ireland, which includes a plant in Dunmurray, outside Belfast, made over 5.7 million in profits in 2005 and 2006.*

The workers at Calcast rightly reacted to this disgraceful announcement by deciding to sit-in at the factory. They will continue to turn up for shifts, but are sitting in the canteen, refusing to finish existing orders and to prevent any machinery being moved out of the factory until Montupet meet their demands. Montupets initial reaction to this disciplined collective action was to break off negotiations with trade union representatives and raise the threat of legal action.

We believe that the treatment of these workers is nothing short of disgraceful and we fully support their action and their demands.

*Source: www.businesscheck.info/businesseye.pdf