Tara Mines has told the Labour Relations Commission that it will recommend the deferral of new work practices to the board of directors pending a formal hearing of the Labour Court into a dispute which threatens to close the Navan plant, with the loss of more than 600 jobs.
The chief executive of the Labour Relations Commission, Mr Kieran Mulvey, made the request yesterday, following the breakdown of conciliation talks on Monday. The plant's human resources manager, Mr John Kelly, said that the board would almost certainly accede to the request when it met tomorrow. He added that the company hoped for an early hearing as it could not sustain the current losses much longer.
He estimates that the losses for May could be $3 million, due to a further slump in zinc prices, from $980 a tonne to $958, and falling productivity. He rejected union claims that production targets were improving and had actually been surpassed in some areas last March.
Mr Kelly said that March was the only month where some targets were met and this had only been achieved by some miners working Saturdays and forgoing overtime rates.
"April came and we're back where we were in January and February," he said. The higher output in March had failed to bring the first quarter's production figures up to agreed targets, and there was a lot of concern in the company that no fundamental improvements were taking place.
The SIPTU branch secretary, Mr Christy McQuillan, blamed the fall-off in productivity on low morale arising from the company's return to an adversarial way of conducting relations with the unions. "I understand that the price has got to be right for the company to mine ore under the ground in Navan, but the price has got to be right for the people who go underground and bring the ore to the surface as well."
He accused the company of using the low zinc prices "to beat the workers into a form of submission" and drastically reduce their earnings.