THE following article has been submitted to donegaldaily.com on behalf of the workers at Oatfield Sweets:
“The lease of the premises by Z Candy is up for renewal in February and then the company can leave. The distributors based in Dublin are closing in February. The McKinneys (former owners) are still shareholders in the site (percentage unknown).
The premises have been downgraded every year for the last 10 years. There are people walking around measuring the existing machines (e.g. those still operating).
All other machines have been shipped to England. The company was making profit and orders are backed up in the stock room. All comments from owners made to the staff were “off the record”.
The unions have done little to negotiate anything for the staff. One member of staff has used €25credit just to get a reply from them. The staff had to ring DUBLIN SIPTU to get the local branch to respond to our calls. The union are willing to keep taking payment from staff wages, yet reluctant to engage the staff in meaningful discussions.
The staff know the plant is closing. What they don’t know is will they get redundancy payments.
The staff have been angered at the paltry attempts by some politicians to engage with the minister’s office as no formal contact was made with them. The Mayor is the only person to directly engage with the staff.
There is much speculation about what the site is worth, who will buy it, what the Creameries strategy is and what a loss Oatfiled as a brand is to the town of Letterkenny. All commendable, but the immediate problem is the future redundancy payments (if offered) to the staff.
The staff would like the assistance of donegaldaily.com to highlight THEIR plight over the other ramifications. Thank You.”
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