Workers at Tara Mines are voting on a proposed agreement intended to facilitate the reopening of the facility.
About 400 workers attended a meeting on Thursday evening at Simonstown GAA club over the number of redundancies, changes to work practices and level of outsourcing envisaged. One union official present said there was “a lot of anger” at the meeting.
Balloting on the deal, which provides for about 150 redundancies on top of the roughly 50 jobs already lost to retirements, many of them early, since the mine was closed on a temporary basis last summer, started at the meeting and will conclude on Friday.
“There were a lot of questions and a lot of anger,” said senior Siptu official Adrian Kane after the meeting. He said acceptance or rejection of the deal was a matter for the members of the three unions – Unite and Connect also represent workers at the company – but that “what is said at meetings is sometimes quite different to what people do in the privacy of a ballot”.
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The various unions have acknowledged the deal will be tough for the roughly 600 staff to accept with the changes involved set to have a “really significant” impact but all three have recommended acceptance.
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“The question is ‘what would the alternative be?’” says Kane. “The staff certainly want the mine to open again, they’ve been hanging about for the last nine months but there is no doubt that what is being proposed involves really significant change.”
Under the terms of the deal reached at the Workplace Relations Commission last week, it is envisaged that the mine, owned by Swedish multinational Boliden, would start to reopen, on a phased basis, in June with groups of workers returning over the following months.
The mine closed on what was said to be a temporary basis last summer with the owners saying they could not sustain the growing level of losses involved.
The company’s Irish operation subsequently reported a 61 per cent decline in revenues for last year, driven by lower zinc prices, lower metal grades, a weaker US dollar, and lower production due to the suspension of operations.
While the unions have criticised the company for its failure to honour a commitment given at the time that all terms and conditions would be maintained, Mr Kane has said the deal reached would maintain current levels of pay and limit the amount of outsourcing involved.
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