SIPTU To Meet With Rehab Enterprises

SIPTU representatives will meet with the management of Rehab Enterprises on Thursday to discuss threatened redundancies at the company's Galway recycling plant.

Eighteen workers at the Galway facility, many of them with disabilities, are to be made redundant during March in a selection process which takes no account of their disabilities.

SIPTU has called on Rehab Enterprises to suspend the redundancies until a working group of union, community and business leaders attempt to access further contracts for the Galway recycling plant.

SIPTU Organiser, Michelle Quinn; said: "SIPTU welcomes the opportunity to meet with the director of Rehab Enterprises for what it is hoped will be constructive discussions. The aim of these discussions should be to progress the joint initiative to secure additional work for the Galway facility thus securing the future employment of all concerned."

Michelle Quinn added that she welcomed a letter from Galway East Labour TD, Colm Keaveney, to Minister for Social Protection, Joan Burton, concerning the proposed redundancies.

In his letter Colm Keaveney points out that Rehab Enterprises is part of the RehabGroup which is in receipt of significant funding from Fás, the HSE, and the Department of Education.

On the proposed redundancies Colm Keaveney states: "it is simply not acceptable that an organisation in receipt of significant state funds should conduct their industrial relations below a standard that would be deemed acceptable in the state or semi-state sector."

(CD/GK)