Guinness employees throughout the Republic are likely to be balloted on industrial action as a result of the company's refusal to suspend its decision to shed 300 jobs in its Dundalk plants.

Meanwhile, today Mr John Mackle, a representative of the Guinness Salaried Staff Association, the largest union in the company, will brief members of the US Congress in Washington on the job move. Mr Mackle will tell the US politicians the parent company Diageo should be asked if it can guarantee that equality of opportunity criteria will be applied in recruiting the 75 extra people at the east Belfast plant.

A meeting of the Joint Union Forum in Guinness in Dundalk yesterday supported the decision to seek a mandate for industrial action. However GSSA secretary Mr Sean Mackle, who represents 1,500 of the 2,500 Guinness employees said that his union would like to see all internal procedures exhausted before opting for industrial action.

While he favoured talks, Mr Mackle warned that the GSSA would be prepared to take fullscale industrial action if these failed. He also predicted that Diageo could face strong political and consumer resistance to its proposals in the US if it was perceived that it had unfair recruitment policies visa-vis the Republic and Northern Ireland.

Guinness spokesman Mr Pat Barry said the company was available for talks. Management sources said 100 of the 300 redundancies would take the form of early retirement packages.

After the meeting Mr King, a SIPTU branch secretary, said "a decision has been taken to commence a national ballot for strike action to be taken in support of the position that the unions want Guinness to remove the threat of the loss of the jobs in Dundalk".