A THREATENED strike today at Cantrell and Cochrane (C&C) has been deferred for a week to allow the Labour Relations Commission to try to resolve the dispute. The company has warned that 300 jobs at the Ballyfermot plant in Dublin could be lost if the strike goes ahead.
The LRC was in contact with both sides yesterday. SIPTU, the union involved, agreed to defer industrial action for five working days after the company said it would not implement a new bonus scheme from this morning. The scheme, combined with other productivity measures, would reduce the earnings of some manual workers by 25 per cent.
Both sides are to meet on Thursday to begin discussions on the changes, which have been approved by the Labour Court. The managing director of C&C in Dublin, Mr Maurice Dorney, has written to staff warning them that a £4 million investment plan to upgrade the plant would not proceed and production would be diverted to the provinces if the strike went ahead.
C&C wants savings of £1.4 million a year from industrial employees. SIPTU branch secretary Ms Anne Speed has said that members had co operated with four restructuring plans already and indicated a willingness to provide £400,000 in savings.
However, she said, it was not possible for staff to make further concessions on the scale being sought, as these would cut into their basic earnings.
Long term casual staff, who make up about half of the industrial workforce, would be hardest hit by the changes. The latest C&C rationalisation plan includes a redundancy package for those workers, providing them with £750 for each year of service.
The company has substantial over capacity in Ireland. It has plants in Cork and Northern Ireland as well as Dublin. The manufacture, bottling and distribution of the firm's soft drinks products, currently done in Ballyfermot, could easily be diverted to one of the other plants according to industry sources.