The shop stewards group representing sacked Debenhams workers says it will fight on to restore workers’ rights after Mandate members voted by 319 to 102 to accept the company’s offer of a €3m training fund in addition to statutory redundancy payments.

In a statement, shop stewards Valerie Conlon, Marie Dignam and Geraldine O'Regan said: "We sustained a struggle that involved pickets, protests, marches, occupations, defying court injunctions, blockades and sit down protests right up until recent days.”

They acknowledged the widespread support among rank and file trade unionists but slammed the attitude of the leadership of their union, Mandate.

“Mandate at official level consistently adopted a passive, minimalist approach, living in fear of the threat of injunctions and the Industrial Relations Act which by design are intended to make industrial struggle weak and ineffective. 

“When the redundancy announcements were made it was clear that our union was conditioned by what they saw as the normal course of events in liquidation situations i.e. that we would have to settle for our bare statutory minimum entitlements from the state social insurance funds."

In Association with

The shop stewards' statement concluded: “We believe in trade unions and the need for a strong effective trade union movement in the tradition of its founders James Connolly and Jim Larkin. However, our experience shows that the movement needs to be transformed from the bottom up with more power to the rank and file and elected shop stewards to decide the conduct of campaigns and disputes."