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14th June 2010

Hundreds of poultry workers helped by BFAWU

Hundreds of poultry workers whose terms of employment were originally changed without their agreement have received compensation after the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union (BFAWU) stepped in.

More than 1,300 workers at O’Kane Poultry Ltd now part of the Moy Park Group in Ballymena, County Antrim received damages after the organic chicken and turkey producer changed the rates of pay for working overtime and customary holidays.

The firm changed the terms and conditions of employment in March and April 2009.

The BFAWU challenged the changes as unfair arguing that it meant employees were suffering an unlawful deduction from their wages.

Attempts by the union to resolve the matter internally on behalf of its members came to nothing and the union was forced to bring in its lawyers Thompsons McClure who lodged an unauthorised deduction from wages compensation claim.

Working with the Labour Relations Agency, Thompsons successfully achieved a settlement of £23,566 shared between the union’s 44 members and an additional £150 each for 1280 other employees.

Long term O’Kane’s employee and BFAWU representative Jim Neill said the employees had fought to stand up for their rights.

“We were only given a few days notice before they changed our terms and conditions and 520 employees complained. As an employee you can complain but without the muscle of the trade union behind us I think our complaints would have gone unheard. With the union’s backing our employer has had to treat us with respect.”

Billie Gallagher, full time official from the BFAWU said: “This is yet more proof that trade unions make a real and tangible difference to workers’ lives. An employer who thought they could ride roughshod over their employees expecting they would sit back and accept detrimental change being imposed on them has been brought to account.

When internal negotiations failed we took it on further with the union’s lawyers.  We have ended up with a sizeable sum for our members and a positive result for non union members as well who will benefit from our intervention.”

George Kilpatrick from Thompsons McClure added: “O’Kane’s first mistake was to make this change without agreement then they compounded that mistake by failing to settle the dispute internally.  Finally they mistakenly thought the BFAWU was going to take all of this lying down. We are pleased that through a combination of litigation and negotiation we have secured a positive result for union members. In future O’Kanes would be better to engage in constructive discussion and negotiation with the union to avoid litigation.”