IF Mullagh's only factory closes then the Cavan town must find another saint. The smart granite clad heritage centre is the only investment in Mullagh in more than a decade. It brings German tourists and their wallets to visit the first class relic - a splinter from St Kilian's martyred skull.
Now Mullagh faces the loss of a £45 million plant and its 490 jobs after a nine week strike by more than half the workforce.
On Wednesday, the US parent company of Wellman International, made a statement to the New York Stock Exchange. The strikers' demands were excessive and unreasonable", it said, "and as a result we are considering our future in Ireland".
Unlike the Dunnes Stores dispute this strike has public opinion, local media, the Labour Court and politicians weighing in behind management. Jobs are precious in the economic blackspot of a Border county. And to outsiders Wellman employees seem well off.
"If they worked in harder jobs they'd have their eyes opened," a man said, his face mask on his forehead. The mask blocks out the smell of the hundreds of pigs he feeds and mucks out every day. "Let them come and work here. I think they're mad and they'll regret it."
To some the Wellman workers are the aristocracy of factory workers: in well paid, secure jobs that involve no great physical effort.
In a pub a woman sat on the barstool: "What's going to happen in Wellman's then? Is it going to live or die?" She had asked a worker about the strike. "He almost took my nose off and said, `There's life after Wellman's'. I think they just got too big for their boots."
Others are more sympathetic to those who have survived on £48 a week strike pay and social welfare for nine weeks. Local grocer Paddy Smyth used to have a Wednesday evening rush in his Mullagh shop after the pay checks were given out. "Most of them are young married people with mortgages and kids back at school this month."
MANY local suppliers have been hit. The staff canteen bought meat and food locally and haulage firms have had their workload halved or wiped out. It has been a tense time. Business people are not keen to talk about their difficulties or allocate blame.
According to Cavan councillor Paddy O Reilly, others are less hesitant. "It is my belief that the majority of SIPTU workers do not support the strike. And if they held a secret ballot they'd vote to go back to work".
One worker, who did not want to be named, denied this. He is married with three children. His take home pay was £220 a week. Last year he received an additional £4,800 before tax from the profit share.
That the workers went out on strike before their holidays was a sign of the strength of feeling, he says. As an industrial tactic it was disastrous, as the company was preparing for a three week lull in production anyway.
He denies accusations that a core group of union officials is enforcing the strike. The Wellman workers are not sheep he says, and people are not likely to go on strike for nine weeks without a good reason.
"The workers are 100 per cent behind this strike. To a man we're not going back until things change." He insists it is not a row over money but over staffing levels brought in last June to increase the company's output.
The plant produces 70,000 tonnes of polyester fibre a year, used for filling soft furnishings and as wadding in the car industry. It spent £5 million expanding the plant last year and redeployed 35 workers.
This meant the job normally done by two men was now done by one, said an employee. The fibre is spun on a long machine and the workers watch the fibres and cut them if there is a problem. Better technology means the job of the second man is done by the machine.
This worker insists the one man operation is a safety hazard. "In certain areas it was like a sweatshop. It was plain to everybody, even floor management, that the new system couldn't work. Up until then you could be reprimanded and sacked for working a machine on your own."
The management line is that more than 30 people were surplus staff and it was necessary to redeploy them. Management says the average wage is £22,900 a year, with last year's profit share taking that up to £27,400. Workers say this figure is only possible after overtime and most are on a basic rate of £17,000 a year.
After 23 years in Cavan the company has an investment of about £45 million in the plant. Wellmans' American shareholders will not be happy to see their investment remain idle for much longer.
PERSONNEL director Joe, Fagan says management has played by the rules by going to the Labour Court and now wants a settlement. The statement from the US parent company is serious, he says.
Wellman International is the last link to the boom time, when Mullagh had a thriving mill, a weekly livestock market and a large co operative. The mill has closed, the co operative was privatised and the farmers started bringing their animals to a larger market nearby.
Jenny McNamee owns one of the town's seven pubs and remembers the money that flowed when the plant was built. "The longer it's going on the more tensed up people are getting.
Mullagh's busiest hour of the week is Friday morning when workers arrive in their cars to pick up strike pay at the town hall. Most people say it will not be the smart little town that will be worst hit, but other Cavan and Meath towns where the commuting workforce spend their Wellman wages.
"People are already starting to feel the pinch, Mr O Reilly says. "More things are starting to go on tick and the mortgage payments are slipping."
Talks aimed at ending the strike are to take place next Tuesday. The company said in a statement yesterday that its position "on all the issues related to the present strike remains unaltered".
In the plant's reception area a poster has the name of every employee printed in the background, with the words "Commitment to the Future" printed over them. The next few weeks will be a test of that commitment.
