Catering staff appeal Gate Gourmet’s grievance decision
STAFF at Gate Gourmet at Dublin Airport have rejected the giant Swiss airline services group’s insistence that it had properly consulted with them before changing their terms and conditions of employment.
The company, which provides catering and cleaning services to many airlines at the airport, had planned to let go almost three-quarters of its 123 person workforce but said the changes to hourly rates and annual leave entitlements had allowed it to reduce job losses to 39.
But a group of staff had lodged formal grievances in December and warned that they planned to refer the matter to the Workplace Relations Commission’s conciliation service.
The staff claimed they were never consulted about the Gate Gourmet plan, which had been agreed on a temporary basis by trade union Siptu. A ballot on a cost-cutting proposal that was carried out by Siptu the week before Christmas overwhelmingly rejected the plan.
In a detailed response to staff last week, Gate Gourmet said it was rejecting their grievance claims. It said it had reviewed all the communications between itself, its employees and Siptu and that it did not accept that any of the changes
were imposed unilaterally or that staff were not provided with adequate notice.
Gate Gourmet said it could not reinstate terms and conditions of employment “due to the detrimental impact this imposes on the viability of the business and job retention”.
Staff subsequently wrote a reply to the company to formally appeal this decision on the basis that “no formal agreement has been reached in relation to any of the matters associated with our formal grievances”.