Pay row workers to stage HQ protest
Gama workers are to march on the company’s headquarters in Dublin today to protest about its plan to dismiss them from their jobs and their accommodation.
Around 300 of the Turkish company’s 800 staff in Ireland are on a work stoppage in protest over pay and conditions.
Gama, which has admitted to underpaying wages and failing to keep proper employment records, has told the workers they will be removed from its payroll and asked to leave their accommodation within the next five days.
Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins, who first raised questions about Gama in the Dáil, said the workers were beginning to get the wages which had been deposited in bank accounts in the Netherlands and now wanted to be compensated for unpaid overtime.
“They are absolutely determined to resist this bullying by Gama,” he said.
Mr Higgins has advised the workers to stay in their accommodation so that the company will be forced to get court orders if it wants to move them.
“The workers have to stay put until all the issues have been resolved,” he said.
The protesting workers are to assemble in Ballymun in Dublin at 2pm today and march to Gama’s headquarters in the Norwood Business Park in Santry.
Last week, the High Court ruled that Enterprise and Employment Minister Micheal Martin could not publish a labour inspectors’ report on the company, pending further proceedings.
However, Judge Peter Kelly said the report could be released to the Garda fraud squad, the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Revenue Commissioners, the director of corporate enforcement, the Competition Authority and the Garda National Immigration Bureau.
