Latest News & Updates

Minihan Commends La Senza Workers

13/01/12

éirígí Dublin City Councillor Louise Minihan has commended workers at the La Senza store in Liffey Valley for staging a sit-in protest in support of their demand for wages and overtime owed to them.

Staff in the Liffey Valley store began the sit-in on Monday evening and by Tuesday morning fellow workers from the chain’s outlets on Henry Street, Grafton Street and Dundrum had joined them. On Tuesday [January 10] La Senza made roughly 100 people redundant after going into administration.

Speaking from Ballyfermot Minihan said:

“It is an absolute disgrace that those at management level of La Senza are treating workers in this manner. This is another case of employers treating their workers as slaves who they think can be made work for nothing.

“To be told that you are to be made redundant is bad enough. But to be then be given the news that you may not be compensated for work that you have already performed only adds salt to the wounds.”

Minihan continued: “In a further cold-hearted act La Senza has failed to issue workers with the correct documents. The women in question have been left without P45 forms, meaning they cannot claim social welfare. And they may also be waiting for up to a year for any redundancy payments. Nothing short of securing every cent the workers are owed will do. The women have vowed to stay until they are paid and we in éirígí offer them our solidarity in their campaign.”

Minihan concluded: “By taking direct action the La Senza workers have taken the right steps in securing what they are entitled to. The rising militancy on display at La Senza and the Vita Cortex plant in Cork are encouraging signs of a growing fight back against an economic system that regards workers as nothing more than accounting units.

“Their two sit-ins are, of course, only part of the wider battle between the elite that run this state and the rest of us. One of the women at Liffey Valley hit the nail on the head when she stated that, ‘these big companies...think they can come in and then trample over workers when they’ve no more use for them. We have to stand up for ourselves...’”

Print-friendly version.