The Klopman textile factory in Tralee, which employed over 1,000 workers at its peak, is to close with the loss of 150 jobs and an annual £2 million wage bill.
Klopman's European president, Mr Guiseppe Rodino is to fly in to Kerry today for a meeting with the company's shop stewards. It is understood that workers will be officially told at this meeting that the plant is to close within the next four months.
In March 1996, the company announced the loss 90 jobs, bringing the workforce down to its current strength of 150 people. It was felt in industry circles that this was too small a unit to survive as a stand alone operation for any period of time.
The plant's owners, the Canadian group Dominion Textiles, has been scaling down its Irish operation for a number of years with large-scale redundancies in Tralee as workers agreed to new conditions and wage cuts in a bid to keep the plant open.
In a major shift in policy last year, the company set up a new marketing unit catering solely for the Tralee factory, but even this failed to stave off closure. Over four years ago, former Tanaiste, Mr Dick Spring brokered a complex £5 million deal with Klopman to secure the then remaining jobs for what, at the time, was considered the foreseeable future.
Under this deal, the State purchased an empty Klopman factory outside Limerick and Klopman agreed to invest in new equipment at the Tralee plant. In 1995, an internal Klopman newsletter revealed that the company would save £3.15 million a year if it closed its Tralee plant and sourced in India the material currently produced in Kerry.
