Former Debenhams workers awarded four week's pay; 'We're hoping this is closure', says Cork shop steward

FORMER workers at Debenhams have said they hope the decision this week by the Labour Court to award each of them four weeks’ pay marks the end of what has been a four-year ordeal for them.

About 800 former workers, almost 300 of them from Cork, are subject to the Labour Court decision, which found in favour of a claim by the Mandate Trade Union that the consultation process with the workers did not commence “in good time”, as required by law.

The Labour Court found that the delay in establishing the consultation process until after liquidators were appointed limited the options available in of reaching an agreement.

Workers had initially asked for 16 weeks’ pay, and last year they had been awarded eight weeks’ pay, which was appealed by the liquidators, and has now been reduced to four weeks’ pay by the Labour Court.

Former shop steward at Debenhams on Patrick St in Cork Valerie Conlon said it was a little disappointing that the amount had been reduced to four weeks, but she said staff were still happy.

Ms Conlon said she hopes this will not be appealed.

In April 2020, about 1,000 Debenhams workers at 11 stores were informed by email that their jobs were gone.

The mail informed staff that they should their local social protection office, or citizens’ advice centre, and it said that they would not receive redundancy payments agreed in 2016.

In that agreement, the company had committed to paying two weeks’ ex-gratia pay per year of service, plus the legal minimum statutory two weeks of pay.

Workers took direct action, mounting picket lines which they maintained for 406 days during the pandemic, demanding that the of the 2016 redundancy agreement be honoured.

The strike eventually came to an end in May 2021 when a proposal for a €3m training fund for the workers was put to a ballot, and was accepted by a majority.

Ms Conlon said that the Labour Court decision had come a day after the fourth anniversary of the initial Debenhams email.

“We got the result of this, so we’re hoping that this will be closure on this.

“We would have liked to have got more, but this has to end at some stage and we are all hoping that this will be the end of it,” Ms Conlon said.

Socialist Party and Solidarity TD for Cork North Central Mick Barry congratulated the Debenhams workers.

“Of course, this represents only a fraction of what they deserve and what they should have got if liquidation law in this country wasn’t so biased against workers,” Mr Barry said.

“If this Dáil doesn’t let my ‘Debenhams bill’ all stages I will be making it an issue in the general election,” he said.

KPMG said the matter was now being dealt with by Interpath Advisory, and when ed, an Interpath spokesperson said nobody was available to comment.