Navan miners are to hold a mass meeting this morning to decide on a Labour Court formula to resolve the Tara Mines dispute.
The miners have rejected proposals for cost-cutting measures at the mine, recommended by a joint management-union committee, and there is a serious risk that the mine could close with the loss of 600 jobs.
Hopes of averting an escalation of the dispute have increased slightly following the Labour Court intervention. The court has proposed that significant differences between the sides on implementing the new cost-cutting proposals should go back to the joint steering committee which drew them up.
The company told the unions yesterday that if the miners agreed to this it would defer the introduction of tougher work schedules it had planned for tomorrow. While this is far from conceding all the miners' demands it offers the hope of a more refined and phased introduction of changes in work practices at the mine.
Last night the SIPTU regional secretary, Mr Jack O'Connor, said: "The situation is still extremely difficult. However, our shop stewards' committee considered the Labour Court report to be helpful." SIPTU met the company yesterday, "and it recognises there are significant implications" for the committee's report, "if the Labour Court recommendation is to be incorporated into it".
He said "the general thrust of the court's recommendation recognises that there are issues to be dealt with and that SIPTU has made a case for those issues."
The Tara Mines human resources manager, Mr Colm Connachy, said the company was "reluctant to accept alternatives to Tara 2005" (the tougher measures the company has threatened to introduce tomorrow). But he accepted there was a need to evaluate the sort of changes proposed by the Labour Court.
The company was prepared to have the changes referred back to the joint committee on the understanding that the same sort of cost savings could be achieved as in Tara 2005, Mr Connachy added. If the miners accept this approach today, the company says, the committee will have until Wednesday to issue its report. Unions and management would meet on Friday to discuss implementation of the proposals if consensus was achieved.
However, last night neither side was underestimating the obstacles remaining to be overcome if a major dispute is to be avoided.