Waterford Crystal – Nationalisation was the only option

By Cillian Gillespie and Stephen Boyd AN EIGHT week long occupation of Waterford Crystal ended after the workforce reluctantly voted to accept a “deal”. One worker at the end of the four hour long meeting said that he felt the deal was “like a gun to the head” of the workforce. There were 708 people working in Waterford Crystal, now there will be only 176 jobs some of them are only guaranteed for six months. The so-called redundancy fund is a miserly €10 million to be divided between more than 800 workers and ex-workers. The workers’ pensions (affecting 1,800 people) are still in a mess and the fund is €120 million short.

By Cillian Gillespie and Stephen Boyd

AN EIGHT week long occupation of Waterford Crystal ended after the workforce reluctantly voted to accept a “deal”. One worker at the end of the four hour long meeting said that he felt the deal was “like a gun to the head” of the workforce.

There were 708 people working in Waterford Crystal, now there will be only 176 jobs some of them are only guaranteed for six months. The so-called redundancy fund is a miserly €10 million to be divided between more than 800 workers and ex-workers. The workers’ pensions (affecting 1,800 people) are still in a mess and the fund is €120 million short.

This deal will mean that the world renowned Waterford Crystal brand name has been purchased by the venture, or more accurately vulture capitalist company KPS which will use it to sell glass products in its shops and on the market. The crystal that KPS will sell as “Waterford Crystal” won’t even have the fingerprint of a Waterford craftsworker on it.

The occupation of the factory began at the end of January after the company’s receiver Deloitte and Touche (D&T) unceremoniously informed the workers that they were to be sacked with almost immediate affect. This was despite the fact that some of them had worked at the plant for more than forty years. Shamefully D&T tried to enforce this decision by hiring a security company to physically threaten and assault the workers when they sought to defend their jobs and livelihoods at the beginning of the occupation.

The workforce instinctively took over the plant and began an eight week long sit-in of the gallery facility as part of their struggle to save their jobs and the manufacturing of crystal at Kilbarry.

From the outset, many of the Waterford Crystal workers called for the government to nationalise Waterford Crystal. This was a viable company and there is a world-wide demand for its product, according to one worker there were sales of $180 million in the US last year.

 

The leadership of Unite, the main trade union at Waterford Crystal, was also for nationalisation. However they never seriously pursued this demand. From the beginning of the occupation until the end, the Unite leadership put all of its energy into getting a private multinational to take over the company.  

Yet it became clear from early in the process that the only private buyers interested in Waterford Crystal were venture capitalists intent on making a quick profit at the workforce’s expense. No capitalist multinational whose primary interest is profit was ever going to take over Waterford Crystal, guarantee a significant number of jobs, maintain the wages and conditions, pay out decent redundancy payments and cough up the €120 million to shore up the pension fund. It was always the intention of KPS and Clarion to take whatever they could from Waterford Crystal and cast the majority of the workforce and pensioners aside.

The only option from the outset that could have saved all of the jobs at Kilbarry, that would have been able to “rescue” the pension fund, and also take Waterford Crystal forward as a viable and profitable company was nationalisation.

The leadership of Unite only really spoke of nationalisation as a last option – in the event that a private buyer couldn’t be found that somehow the government would then have to step in! The position adopted by the Unite leadership of effectively ruling out nationalisation played a major role in the defeat of the Waterford Crystal workers.

Throughout the occupation and struggle of the Waterford Crystal workers, they received support from the majority of people in the Waterford region. They also received solidarity support from workers all over the world.

Against the backdrop of the nationalisation of Anglo Irish Bank, the €7 billion bailout of AIB and the Bank of Ireland and now the €90 billion bailout of the property developers and banks, a credible campaign for the nationalisation of Waterford Crystal could have been built that would have received the support of the majority of people in the country.

The world class skills and talents of the craft workers at Waterford Crystal along with the other staff could have then taken on responsibility to run the company. Waterford Crystal freed from the shackles of profiteers like Tony O’Reilly could have been democratically run by the workforce and would have had a future. 

The destruction of Waterford Crystal will have a major impact on the wider economy of the Waterford region. The Fianna Fail and Green Party government should be condemned for refusing to nationalise Waterford Crystal and are also to blame for the hundreds who have lost their jobs. But Fianna Fail and the Greens were never going to willingly nationalise the company – this goes against their neo-liberal ethos.

Nationalisation could have been achieved if a real battle by the leadership of the Unite trade union had been fought which mobilised the support for the Waterford Crystal workers that existed throughout the country and beyond.

As Donie Fell (Waterford Crystal worker) said in the last issue of the Socialist: “We need to wake up and put a stop to this. We have to stop being afraid to say nationalise. Our unions have got to stop pandering to the bosses and do what they are supposed to do, represent us, that is why we pay them”.

Total
0
Shares
Previous Article

NI: Visteon workers battle for jobs

Next Article

Budget: €90 billion bailout for the super rich

Related Posts

No Compromises – SCRAP the pension levy

By Denis Keane, CPSU Executive member (personal capacity)

FOLLOWING ON from our demonstration of 4,000 people outside Dail Eireann on the 18 February, CPSU members took part in a one-day strike on 26 February. This protest and one day strike were in reaction to the pay cuts (pension levy) being imposed by the government.

The strike had the overwhelming support of other public servants. Even though they were threatened with disciplinary action, many public servants refused to pass the picket and in some cases joined our picket lines with their home made placards. On the day there was almost universal agreement amongst all grades that our unions needed to take co-ordinated and united action against the pension levy.

Read More

Paul strike – respect the pickets!

Workers employed by Paul Construction started picketing four of their sites on 2 December. Over thirty workers had previously sat in on the St Vincents’ Hospital site on the previous Monday. They agreed to give up their sit in when the company began talks with the workers’ union SIPTU.

Read More

Greyhound lockout – a fight for all workers

It is now nine weeks since Greyhound workers were treated in the style of William Martin Murphy by their employer, Michael Buckley. They arrived to work – were presented with new contracts, including pay cut of up to 35% and a change to a whole series of other working conditions and were instructed to sign or they were not working. After refusing to sign, they were escorted off the premises by security. Agency workers immediately began doing their jobs. This is 1913 in 2014.