Resistance has hardened in Dungarvan, Co Waterford, against the reorganisation of the Avonmore Waterford Group. It proposes to close the town's dairy manufacturing plant next year with the loss of 135 full-time and 35 seasonal jobs.
Local representatives and trade unions have warned that the closure of the Shandon plant, regarded as cost-efficient and technically advanced, will not go through without a struggle. Action plans have emerged at local meetings since AWG announced its sweeping rationalisation scheme on November 25th.
Confrontation is likely over interpretation of the announcement by AWG that the Dungarvan facility "will operate on a seasonal basis in 1998 at reduced capacity".
The ATGWU district officer, Mr Tony Mansfield, said: "We're saying that there is a future for the Dungarvan site, where you have raw material of high quality and the suppliers of the raw material. There are over 70 million gallons of Waterford Foods milk within a 35-mile radius."
Under the rationalisation scheme, the milk which went to the former Waterford Foods plant in Dungarvan will be brought to the AWG (formerly Avonmore) plant at Ballyragget, Co Kilkenny, for processing. The union, however, has by no means accepted that the Dungarvan closure is inevitable.
"We're seeking negotiations in respect of the future of the Dungarvan site," Mr Mansfield said. "We met the company last week and we're not happy with the production projections for the site."
The company representatives had been asked for further clarification, he added.
There are signs of disquiet among Waterford dairy farmers, a majority of whom voted for the amalgamation of their co-op with Avonmore earlier this year. Mr Mansfield asserts: "It's quite clear that the farmers were not consulted, good, bad or indifferent, about the closure of the Dungarvan plant."
He adds: "In my opinion, all the farmers in Waterford should come together, hold a meeting and decide between themselves if they want to close the plants in Dungarvan and Kilmeaden.
"It is nothing less than industrial sabotage to close these plants.
"Nobody is suggesting that Ballyragget should not be the key plant of the new group. We haven't opposed a merger. Nobody has suggested that the composite headquarters of AWG should not be in Kilkenny. But in the rural situation, you don't put all your eggs in one basket. Many of the farmers around here are belatedly waking up to the fact that they were sold a pup."
The extent of the growing disquiet among Waterford farmers over the merger may become clearer tomorrow, when several hundred of them are to hold a meeting. It is understood that AWG executives will attend, and they will be questioned on the justification for winding up the Dungarvan processing operation, and on implementation of the promised milk-price increase of 3p above the industry average.
The ATGWU insists that nothing has yet been negotiated, neither the future of the Dungarvan plant nor any voluntary redundancies to take place there. If there are attempts to move unilaterally on either aspect, the union warns, a nation-wide dispute could follow.
The evidence of Waterford dairy farmers' concern about the swingeing rationalisation measures is significant. According to some sources, about 75 per cent of the employees in the Dungarvan plant are farmer-related. "Farmers can now see that the maintenance of production at the Dungarvan site is in their interests as well as our interests," says Tony Mansfield.
The ICMSA, significantly, criticised the closure plan when it was announced last month. The attitude of the IFA is more equivocal. The Dungarvan operation is said to have the lowest pro rata energy costs of any plant in the group. Its products are not duplicated by other plants. All of them are high-quality, added-value products for which a market share has been hard won.
Lactic butter for the German market, milk protein concentrate, attrition-dried hard casein, and high, low and medium heat skim are its major lines.
Mr Mansfield insists the situation at Dungarvan is evolving. The union had engaged, over years, in co-operative efforts with management to improve the plant and bring it to its present level of efficiency.
There can be further improvements, he says: "If there is negotiation, anything is possible. We have previously negotiated the operation of the plant with Waterford Foods. We negotiated major changes on the site, for example, when the milk quota system was introduced by the EU."
Other representative interests in Dungarvan and in Waterford generally are also mobilising to defend the county against the severity of the proposals.
The Tanaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment, Ms Harney, became involved this week when she visited Waterford and met a delegation including the County Manager, Mr Donal Connolly; trade union officers; Dungarvan Chamber of Commerce representatives; and the West Waterford Fianna Fail TD, Mr Brendan Kenneally.
They complained that Waterford appeared to be taking the brunt of the job losses in the wake of the merger, and she undertook to raise their points when she meets the chief executive of AWG, Mr Pat O'Neill, tomorrow.
Specific demands are emerging. The union wants full negotiation before any changes are implemented. Dungarvan UDC is seeking separate meetings with the various groups of consultants who were said to have advised AWG to close Dungarvan.
Several groups are demanding an independent evaluation of the Dungarvan processing operation. Farmers have joined local groups in insisting that AWG should justify the plan to redirect Waterford's huge milk pool over 60 miles of bad road to Ballyragget for processing.
After her meeting in Waterford, Ms Harney acknowledged that workers in the Dungarvan and Kilmeaden plants were anxious "to be consulted and to negotiate about the kind of changes that are occurring in the company".
She said she would explore this with Mr O'Neill. She also wanted to explore how the investment and development funds which the company has promised to make available will be used.
Ms Harney added: "I want to see if the company will make their premises and their lands available for alternative uses."
The battle appears only to be beginning.