Workers at the Gallaher cigarette manufacturing plant in Tallaght, south Dublin, have reacted angrily to a decision by the company to close the facility with the loss of 121 jobs, writes Joe Humphreys.
Union representative Ms Anne Speed said employees were "very aggrieved" that they had not been consulted on the rationalisation plan as required under national pay agreements.
Speaking following a company announcement yesterday, she said: "We are not taking this as a foregone conclusion, and we are not going to be bounced into severance talks."
The Dublin job losses are part of a broader restructuring of the Gallaher Group's European operations. Its factory at Lisnafillan, near Ballymena, Co Antrim, which currently employs 850 people, will see 130 jobs go this year, with another 45 lost by 2005.
A further 134 jobs are due to be shed in Austria and Britain, where Gallaher has its headquarters, bringing the total job losses to 430.
A spokesman for the company said the decision was "nothing to do with sales. It's purely an operational efficiency measure."
The Lisnafillan plant has spare capacity for producing an extra nine billion cigarettes a year, bringing total annual production there to 40 billion. As the Tallaght plant has capacity for producing only 3.5 billion cigarettes a year, moving its operations north could save the company millions of euro.
Ms Speed, secretary of SIPTU's Dublin Drink, Tobacco and Wholesale Distribution branch, said it had requested a meeting with management to discuss the plan, and would be writing to the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, demanding her intervention.
Ms Speed noted an EU employment directive demanding consultation on "probable development of employment . . . must be backed up by strong penalties for non-compliance".
She added: "A multinational as wealthy as Gallaher, and an industry as wealthy as the tobacco business, should not walk away from its moral responsibilities, whatever about its legal ones."
Local politicians also called on Ms Harney, a former TD in the Dublin South West constituency where the plant is located, to put in place measures to assist the workers.
A spokesman for the Tánaiste said she was "very disappointed" by the job losses, but that the priority now was to find alternative employment for the workers. Ms Harney has promised to make the resources of State agencies, such as FÁS, available to achieve that objective.
Under Gallaher's restructuring plan, 105 jobs will be retained at Tallaght in sales, marketing, distribution, human resources, information technology, customer services and finance.
Mr Adrian Goodrich, managing director of Gallaher (Dublin) Ltd, said: "Any proposal to reduce jobs is regrettable, particularly when our employees contribute so much to the success of the group. However, the restructuring of our European operations will enable Gallaher to remain at the forefront of operational efficiency and help to ensure the long-term success of the group and its employees."
The announcement follows the closure of Gallaher's Malmö factory in Sweden last year, which was acquired as part of its purchase of Austria Tabak in 2001. Industry analysts said they expected the cuts to lead to annual cost savings of around €17 million.
The cuts come two months after the group announced that annual turnover had soared 47 per cent to €12 billion, with pre-tax profits up 15 per cent to €529 million.
