Any attempt to close plants where staff refuse to accept the Avonmore Waterford Group's voluntary redundancy package will be opposed, unions have warned. This could pose serious problems for the company in closing the plants in Dungarvan and Rathfarnham, Dublin.
AWG proposes closing three other plants at Castlelyons, Co Cork, Clonmel, Co Tipperary, and Dundalk, Co Louth, as part of its plan to shed 750 jobs in Ireland over the next year and 550 jobs in Britain.
As expected, the largest two rationalisation proposals are for the closure of the Dungarvan milk processing plant, with the loss of 130 jobs, and Rathfarnham with 214 staff being made redundant. In contrast, the other three plants employ only 71 people between them.
Dungarvan is being targeted because the plant is old and only has annual capacity for 100 million gallons of milk.
The Ballyraggett plant built by Avonmore has capacity for 200 million gallons. Dungarvan will retain a role as an administrative and farm services centre.
About 100 distribution jobs will be retained at Rathfarnham, but all production will cease in what is the capital's last remaining dairy.
When union leaders met senior management in Portlaoise yesterday they expressed their anger at not being consulted about the group's rationalisation plans. The unions will hold meetings within the group's various divisions, to decide their attitude to the plan. Each inter-union divisional committee will decide its policy but any committee opposing closures can expect support from the others, the AWG union group secretary, Mr John Dwann, has said.
The SIPTU branch secretary for Rathfarnham, Mr Brian O'Neill, said members had agreed to the closure of another Dublin dairy plant in Finglas because they had been told this would secure Rathfarnham's future. Mr O'Neill said the plan to cease production by next summer and close the plant by the end of 1998 "is unacceptable and will be resisted".
The ATGWU district secretary in Dungarvan, Mr Tony Mansfield, has also warned that any forcible closure will be resisted.
SIPTU members in Rathfarnham have already decided not to vote on the proposed voluntary redundancy package in case it should be taken as an implicit acceptance of job losses. AWG management is confident, however, that the generous terms on offer will secure the needed redundancies.
The terms provide for six weeks' pay for each year of service, plus a £6,000 lump sum and statutory entitlements. An AWG spokesman said a worker with 20 years' service would be entitled to around £57,000. The average payment will be £55,000 and some employees will be entitled to £100,000.
Although the Dungarvan and Rathfarnham plants were formerly part of the Waterford division, the company secretary, Mr Brendan Grahame, denies that the merger could be regarded as a take-over of Waterford by Avonmore. "Eight teams were set up with representation from both sides to review the group's operations," he said, "and their findings were validated externally."
But Mr Dwann said last night that the unions should have been involved in the review. "Any attempt by the company to enforce its plans unilaterally, or to compel redundancies will be resisted to the full," he warned.
AWG will negotiate separately with the British Transport and General Workers' Union on the 550 redundancies planned for its UK operations.
The proposed closure of Rathfarnham was condemned last night by the Fine Gael TD for Dublin South, Mr Alan Shatter, and the Democratic Left TD for Dublin South West, Mr Pat Rabbitte.