B3 staff hit out at lack of agency support
Over 100 workers made redundant almost eight weeks ago following the shock closure of one of Co Longford's biggest manufacturers have set up a special action committee in a bid to safeguard their future and secure alternative employment.
Newly elected chairman of the B3 Action Committee Joe Murphy said workers had come to the decision of forming a taskforce following a series of recently held meetings.
It comes almost eight weeks to the day since the cable giant closed with the loss of 104 jobs.
Reflecting on the move, Mr Murphy said staff had decided to take the initiative themselves after growing frustrated at the apparent lack of support coming from government backed agencies.
"A number of workers have been doing FAS courses to help them with CV preparation and interview skills, things like that," he said this week. "There are others well paid to do this kind of thing and with the necessary expertise but we decided to do this ourselves. I have been talking to people in Dell in Limerick and they did something similar when they lost their jobs."
A deluge of politicians, from local, national and even European level, have given their backing to the committee, some of which were present at a meeting held by workers just last week.
Mr Murphy was however keen to stress that the committee will not allow the issue to become a cheap means of political point scoring.
"That's what we don't want," he clearly stated. "One of the big positives to come out of this is Marian Harkin (MEP) has agreed to work with us." The independent politician is scheduled to meet with the committee this Saturday.
He said the aim of the committee was to become far more than a "glorified talking shop". A short-term goal, he said was the need to ring-fence funding for staff, whilst medium to long term targets such as attracting a new company to locate at the former B3 site at Aughafad were still very much attainable.
"Our view is if we sit on our hands and do nothing and if the machines in the factory are sold, the whole jigsaw is gone," he said.
In a separate move, Co Mayor, Cllr Paul Connell said talks involving both IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland with regard to the B3 situation as well as Longford's wider unemployment problem would be discussed in greater depth at next week's Co Council meeting.
Email to a friend
Print this page
Looking for...
Featured advertisers
Jobs
Search for a job
Weather for Longford, Ireland
Sunday 05 February 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 5 C to 7 C
Wind Speed: 7 mph
Wind direction: South west
Tomorrow
Cloudy
Temperature: 5 C to 10 C
Wind Speed: 6 mph
Wind direction: North west
