Good sense prevails

WE welcome the news that the Unite and Siptu unions have suspended strike action at Cadbury to consider, and ballot on, fresh proposals from the Workplace Relations Commission that would see cost savings introduced but without the planned outsourcing of jobs.

This shows great wisdom on everyone’s part. Cadbury parent company Mondelez has proved in the past that it is not sentimental; when it was known as Kraft, it promised to keep a Welsh factory open if it gained control of Cadbury, but soon afterwards closed it and moved production to Poland. In a globalised world, such decisions seldom cost managements a second thought.

There were 17 jobs in Dublin impacted by the original proposal, but a total of 700 were ultimately at risk, and to see the factory closed would have brought misery and hardship to the workforce.

Hopefully, a lasting, binding agreement can be achieved, with the minimum of brinkmanship from either side.

Contrast that, then, with the industrial action at Luas operator Transdev, where first the unions launched a pay claim plucked from the realm of fantasy, before management counter-punched with accusations of fake toilet breaks.

It was the sort of juvenile industrial relations spat we knew in the Seventies and we cannot go back. Transdev and its workers have a lot to learn from the levelheadedness of the Cadbury negotiators.