SIPTU members marched to Clerys Department store on O’Connell Street, Dublin, at lunchtime on Saturday, 13th June, demanding fair treatment and justice less than 24 hours after their jobs were made redundant with immediate effect. Following a meeting on Saturday morning at Liberty Hall more than a hundred employees of the company, some of whom have worked for over 40 years at the iconic Dublin store, marched to demand the Store’s new owners and management agree to immiedate talks with their union. SIPTU Organiser, Teresa Hannick: “All right-thinking people will unreservedly condemn the treatment of these workers. Only a few hours after staff had learned that Clerys had been sold by Gordon Brothers Ireland to the real estate company, Natrium Ltd, they were then told the company was being liquidated. “They have yet to meet any representatives of Gordon Brothers Ireland or Natrium Ltd. The workers only learned that their jobs were lost when a liquidator from KPMG arrived at the store at around 5.00 p.m. on Friday and told them the company was closing. “Several of our members in Clerys have never worked anywhere else. Our shop steward has worked for the company for 43 years. He was told by the liquidator with only 30 minutes notice that he had to leave the place where he had worked for over four decades, before the doors were to be padlocked shut. “This treatment of honest hard working people marks a despicable new low in the annals of Irish business practice.”
SIPTU members at Clerys ‘march for justice’ to O’Connell Street store
