AS 600 Packard workers gathered on Friday, June 2nd, 1995, in the Tallaght Basketball Arena to vote on a rescue package for their plant, a fax arrived at the Department of Enterprise offices in Kildare Street.
It was from Delphi Packard. The company wanted a concession added to those the union had accepted only hours before in the deal brokered by the Minister, Mr Richard Bruton, and his Minister of State, Mr Pat Rabbitte.
The company wanted freedom to reduce the redundancy terms on offer to employees being let go. Quietly but firmly it was told a deal was a deal. It would have to stick with the terms agreed during five hours of gruelling talks with unions and Government the night before.
The Packard workers voted, ignorant of the company's latest demand, by 348 to 241 to accept the package.
The terms were harsh half the workers would have to accept lay offs of at least nine months, followed by possible redundancy the rest would continue operating under a pay freeze and work a 41 hour week for 39 hours' pay.
The Department and the two Ministers were perturbed by the company's attempt to wring a last minute concession. Had the proposal been put to the meeting, it would almost certainly have led to the deal's rejection and the plant's closure last summer.
And this was only one of many twists which have tried the patience of politicians, the Labour Court and the Labour Relations Commission in dealing with Packard.
One negotiator said he had never before dealt with a company which could alter its position three times in one day.
The dispersed nature of decision making in the company is one reason for this. Local management has no autonomy. The managing director of Packard Electric (Ireland) is based in Coventry. Last year the MD was Mr David Schramm, whose acerbic and forthright comments did little to help defuse the situation.
Besides Mr Schramm there was also the group's European human resources manager, Mr Jose Couto, based in Wuppertal, Germany. He has a role in deciding Tallaght's fate, as does the parent organisation of Delphi Packard in Pittsburgh. Each layer of the group showed different, some times conflicting, attitudes towards the Irish operation.
Mr Schramm was due to return to the US before the end of 1995. It was felt his successor, Mr Carlos Ferreira, would have a less combative attitude to industrial relations problems. His appointment, however, made no difference to the way the company operated.
Of course, not all blame can be attributed to management. SIPTU and the ATGWU are the main unions in Packard. The latter has grown in membership largely at the expense of the former, and the ATGWU has also tended to dominate the shop stewards' committee.
Union rivalry in the workplace can be productive, especially when times are good and they vie to win concessions for their members. But during the bad times, neither union will want to be seen as the first to make concessions to the employer, even if these might be in the long term interests of members.
Given that local management had no power to make important decisions and senior management in Coventry seemed unsympathetic, there was no incentive for shop stewards or union officials to adopt a high risk strategy and offer the hand of friendship to save Tallaght.
On the contrary, the convenor of the shop stewards, Mr Martin Walsh, was a member of the Militant Tendency and saw issues primarily in terms of class struggle. He resigned as convenor at the start of the June 2nd meeting because he could not personally endorse the rescue package and he urged other employees to vote against it.
His successor, Mr Liam Berney, has adopted a more flexible approach but has received little thanks from the company. Relations disintegrated last October when Mr Bernie, Mr Walsh and another shop steward were suspended for holding a union meeting in working hours. A Rights Commissioner who investigated the case exonerated them.
With the company failing to win orders on the scale needed to bring Tallaght to full production, morale among the workforce and relations with management continued to deteriorate this year. When Packard announced it could not meet the April 15th deadline to review the 400 layoffs accepted under the June agreement, things began to unravel.
The unions organised a series of protests and also approached Mr Rabbitte for assistance. As a TD for the area and a former national group secretary of SIPTU, he was the obvious candidate for one more rescue attempt. He arranged a meeting with Mr Ferreira and Mr Couto on April 16th.
When this failed to produce results he sought meetings with the two men himself and, when they failed to respond, he went straight to the top. He spoke with the president of Delphi Automotive Systems, Mr J.T. Battenberg III.
Mr Battenberg said he had stark news and wanted to come to Ireland to deliver it personally. He also requested Mr Rabbitte to arrange a meeting for him with the Taoiseach, Mr Bruton.
On Monday he told them that the Tallaght plant had no future. It just could not compete with lower wage economies, particularly those of eastern Europe.
He was flying to the European headquarters of the group in Wuppertal and intended breaking the news of the closure to union representatives on Thursday. But news leaked and word was out that Tallaght was doomed.
Mr Battenberg gave two commitments before leaving Ireland. He said that not only Delphi Packard but its parent company, General Motors, would do what they could to facilitate job creation opportunities for the workers being made redundant.
In addition, the previous redundancy offer to employees of five weeks' pay for each year of service would be honoured.