Crowe congratulates La Senza workers

Dublin South West Sinn Féin TD Seán Crowe has congratulated the women workers at the La Senza lingerie group for achieving payment of the wages and overtime owed to them after a sit in at the Liffey Valley store in Dublin.

Last week Deputy Crowe visited the protesting workers at Liffey Valley and hosted a delegation of women who had been made redundant by La Senza before raising their plight in the Dáil during a Topical Issue’s debate. Describing their treatment at the hands of the La Senza management as “unacceptable and wrong”, Deputy Crowe said:

“The workers at La Senza in the Liffey Valley Shopping Centre, along with those at Lagan Brick in Cavan and Vita Cortex in Cork, not only lost their jobs but found themselves abandoned by their former employers and by the government.

“Last week I visited the workers during their sit-in protest and I was greatly impressed by their determination to secure the back pay and overtime they were owed. I welcome therefore, the decision of La Senza to pay these women their wages and overtime but their conduct in this matter has been nothing short of disgraceful. It is difficult enough that these women lost their jobs but to have then been abandoned to their fate without even getting their minimum entitlements is unacceptable and wrong.

“It was only by resorting to direct action did the La Senza workers secure their basic rights but like hundreds of thousands of others, they now find themselves facing the nightmare prospect of unemployment. Theirs is a fate that many more people will share because this government is failing to create jobs as it continues to implement its austerity programme.”