- Fight for Nationalisation of Waterford Crystal now!
THE DECISION by the Waterford Crystal Deloitte and Touche Receiver to sell part of the company and the rights to the Waterford Crystal brand has left the workers high and dry. The Socialist spoke to Donie Fell, a Waterford Crystal worker, about what this means for the workers, their families and the wider community.
DF The decision to sell to KPS means uncertainty for the Waterford workers and their families. As things stand there is not a lot of information about the deal but it appears to be based on the input of ?10 million to the severence package that will not satisfy the problem of severence as it is just about a third of the sum required to solve it.
The “promise” of 240 jobs is not great given that half of those jobs appear to be temporary but more info is required. We still have the issue of the pension funds to resolve and that is a major issue as it has effects way beyond our industry.
People are disappointed, but in fairness they never expected to be jumping up and down at the prospects before them. The loss of the payroll from the Crystal and now Bausch and Lomb, allied with short time working in many plants plus the decline in construction means the community is suffering a major blow to its economic life. This cannot but have repercussions on the retail and entertainment sectors and employment in those sectors.
I believe that the community is fearful for the future but angry that It is expected to carry the can for greedy bankers, developers, and crooked and inept politicians.
TS: What should be done to save Waterford Crystal?
DF: Well the answer is fairly obvious, it should be taken into public ownership, but unfortunately that is not on the agenda. Nationalisation is ok for the banks who have stolen billions, so why shouldn’t it work in industry? Be it Waterford Crystal or SR Technics.
Why not? These are industries that are highly skilled, indigenous, and local in the sense that they are based in communities and are the life-blood of those communities. So why allow some faceless greedy bastards take them from the country?
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.
