SF Meets With Minister To Discuss Redundancies At FG Wilson

A Sinn Féin delegation lead by Jennifer McCann MLA and including West Belfast MLA's Pat Sheehan, Fra McCann and Rosie McCorley has met with the Employment and Learning Minister, Stephen Farry, to address concerns over the recently announced redundancies at FG Wilson.

Speaking following the meeting Ms McCann said: "This meeting forms part of a series of meetings that Sinn Féin are carrying out with regards to the devastating jobs blow at FG Wilson.

"We raised with the Employment and Learning Minister the need to engage with the workforce. It is our understanding that as recently as Friday the workforce had not been engaged with sufficiently since July and remain in the dark with regards to who exactly will be made redundant and under what conditions.

"FG Wilson must reverse this and we urged the Minister to outline this to them and to treat their workforce with respect.

"There were also commitments given to carry out a skills audit at the plants and assess where the needs lies amongst the workforce in terms of skills, accredited qualifications and signposting those seeking new employment towards opportunities and relevant pathways.

"In all this was a positive meeting and we are set to meet again with the Minister in the near future. We will also be meeting with Invest NI and the Enterprise, Trade and Investment Minister in the coming days.

"The removal of 760 jobs at FG Wilson is a huge blow to the local economy. Our jobs now is to mitigate the worst effects of these layoffs and support those affected."

(CD)