Packard workers shorten week

MANAGEMENT at the Packard Electric Plant in Tallaght, Co Dublin, has not reacted to the return to a shorter working week by the 400 employees.

The workers had been operating a 41 hour week plus overtime at the motor components factory, but in an official ballot decided by 308 votes to 25 to return to a flat 39 hour week, in protest at what they say is a management breach of a bonus agreement.

Trade union representatives have said the productivity bonus row has been ongoing since October. In December they balloted the workers, who decided to refuse to work the extra two hours a week or to do any more overtime.

When the plant reopened on Tuesday after the Christmas holidays employees began work at 8 a.m. instead of the previous 7 a.m. start.

This roster continued all week with no response from the management.

The 41 hour week is part of an agreement between the company and its employees.

Under this deal the employees are paid for 39 hours' work and the remaining two hours are a "loan" to the company to be "banked" and used in con unction with social welfare for layoffs.

The agreement was to come into effect from January 1st and so did not apply to the pre Christmas lay offs when the workforce was let go for a week.

This was blamed on a drop in demand for parts for a new Vauxhall model.

Packard produces wiring harnesses for vehicles and one of its main customers is Vauxhall.

Talks at the labour Relations Commission in December failed to avert the early Christmas closure of the factory, which ran into the normal Christmas holiday.

There was no management comment yesterday, but the company has already said in a letter to the unions that the agreement on "banked hours", made in January last year, is "very clear".

Management said the agreement states that "payment will be made in 1996 and it is the company's intention to do this in line with the agreement".