Former Debenhams employees vote to end industrial action after 406 days

They accepted a settlement offer of a three million euro training fund.

Former Debenhams workers have voted to accept the offer of a three million euro training fund and end industrial action which has been going on for 406 days.

However, the former employees have said the settlement "does not come anywhere close" to honouring "an adequate reward for the struggle" that the workers have faced over the past year. The training fund was originally offered in December, following recommendations by mediator Kevin Foley. "After over 406 days of struggle for a just redundancy settlement, a majority of former Debenhams staff have voted to accept the offer of a €3 million training fund," the Debenhams Shops Stewards said in a statement on Thursday. "This does not mean that the vast majority of former Debenhams workers see it as coming anywhere close to the honouring of the four weeks’ pay per year’s service redundancy (two weeks’ statutory plus two weeks’ enhanced) that we signed off with our former employer nor an adequate reward for the struggle we have waged. "Rather it is a reflection that the shop stewards and workers, in the majority, concluded that they had fought as hard as was possible and the moment was right to bring the industrial fight to a conclusion." "In the difficult and unprecedented context of a global pandemic, we sustained a struggle that involved pickets, protests, marches, occupations, defying court injunctions, blockades, and sit down protests right up until recent days. "In the end, it took the deployment of the Court Orders and the Gardaí to force the stock out, although not always successfully as spectacularly demonstrated in Limerick this week." The shop stewards added that they wanted to "acknowledge the deep well of support" which couldn't be fully expressed due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. "We want to acknowledge the deep well of support among working-class people which could not be fully expressed in an active fashion because of the Covid restrictions. In different circumstances, we know that at various points they would have come out in their thousands to support us on the protests and marches," the statement continued. "Once the industrial dimension of our struggle concludes it does not spell the end of the campaigning that many of us are committed to continue in support of the legislative change required to strengthen the legal position of workers in liquidation situations. "The government has kicked such a proposal into touch for a year and promised a process of their own leading to some undefined change. You can be sure that the Debenhams workers will put their stamp on this debate in the coming year." Debenhams announced the end of its Irish operations last April with the loss of roughly 1,200 jobs throughout the country.