LAST time the ESB's shiftworkers rejected the Cost and Competitiveness Review it was by just under 140 votes. This time the margin was reduced to just 90 votes, but it was still a rejection.
Despite the second rejection, it is unlikely that this vote will result in power cuts, or even the collapsed of the CCR. There is too little dividing the shiftworkers and the company for either to lurch on to such a self destructive path.
Not only is there the imminent threat of competition in the energy market from 1998 but the company has the obvious option of implementing the CCR for its 9,000 other employees while it tries to sort things out with the shiftworkers.
Discussions on how to implement the CCR, including 2,000 redundancies, with the 60 categories who have accepted the deal have not even begun.
The company and the shiftworkers probably have several months before difficulties would arise with shiftworkers on the old system and other power station workers operating the new one. In the meantime, the shiftworkers would see colleagues enjoying substantial financial benefits denied them.
Which is not to say that the company and the ESB group of unions have not been bitterly disappointed by the outcome of this second ballot. The terms had been, brokered by the general secretary of the ICTU, Mr Peter Cassells, two weeks ago. Last October, he intervened to save the CCR from collapse.
There was reason for optimism. The company had announced weeks ago that it was deferring a £50 million investment package for its peat fired power stations in the midlands after the result of the first ballot was given. This was effectively telling shiftworkers based in the midlands, who formed the hard core of opposition to the CCR terms, that their jobs were on the line.
On a more positive note, the proposals addressed the concerns expressed by the shiftworkers about safety and pay. But there was no movement by management on the crucial issue of staffing levels at the power stations.
The company took the view that any concessions on staffing would lead to claims from the 9,000 other employees who had voted to accept the terms of the CCR.
The problem was that in most other categories agreement had been reached between management and unions on key issues before the CCR was put to ballot. The shiftworkers were the only group of workers within the company where they were being asked to vote for the management's final offer and where their own negotiating team recommended rejection.
Shiftworkers provide 24 hours operational cover for the company's power stations. Under the new system the shift complement would be reduced by a third for most of the time.
Total numbers would fall from 600 to 409. In a large power station, like Moneypoint, which can generate up to a third of the power used in the grid, the shift cover would fall from 15 to 10.
The ATGWU, which represents three quarters of the 600 shiftworkers in the ESB, says that the extra workload will be too great, for the staff left after rationalisation is completed. The increase in workload at smaller stations could be even greater.
The ATGWU official who represents ATGWU shiftworkers, Mr Denis Rohan, says adequate cover can be provided without breaching the CCR limit on 409 jobs. He says his members are not just being stubborn. "Shift operatives agree there is a need for a CCR.
"They are not trying to stifle the process, but what we have got to get, in line with other categories, is proposals that are agreeable to them." That does not seem an impossible objective in the months ahead.