WORKERS AT Tara Mines have voted to accept new cost-cutting terms and work-practice changes drawn up by an independent facilitator in a bid to end a row which had threatened the future of the facility.
However, trade union Siptu said yesterday that staff at another mine at Galmoy in Kilkenny are to be laid off a year early as a result of market conditions.
In a ballot yesterday, production staff at Tara, who are represented by Siptu, voted by 59 per cent to 41 per cent in favour of accepting new working arrangements which provide for continuous, four-cycle shift working.
Workers at Tara also voted by 55 per cent to 45 per cent in favour of new pay proposals.
Craft unions and supervisors still have to vote on the new proposals.
Earlier this month, all 670 workers at Tara, Europe’s largest zinc mine, were placed on protective notice following a row over cost-cutting measures the company wanted to introduce.
Speaking after the ballot result, Siptu Meath branch organiser John Regan said: “The tightness of the vote, especially on pay, shows that a lot still needs to be done by the company on how it implements the new terms.
“We will also be awaiting the outcome of ballots by white-collar, supervisory and craft workers.”
Meanwhile, Siptu said that Galmoy had accelerated the winding down of its operations with the loss of 200 jobs.
Siptu national industrial secretary Gerry McCormack said that all of the workers had been due to be laid off by 2010 because the ore body was almost exhausted. However, because of market conditions, some of the redundancies were being brought forward.
He said that operations would now cease by May.
“However, I can confirm that the company is honouring the terms of the redundancy agreement it negotiated with Siptu last year,” he said.