GOVERNMENT efforts to find a buyer for the Semperit plant in Dublin will intensify after a breakthrough in talks between the company and unions on redundancy pay. The Minister for Enterprise and Employment, Mr Bruton, will go to Germany on Sunday to meet the chairman of Semperit's parent company, Continental AG, to discuss ways of saving the 633 jobs in Ballyfermot.
The workforce was offered an extra £6.3 million in redundancy payments by the company. Management met the unions yesterday afternoon and told them Continental had finally agreed to pay the full terms proposed by the Labour Court. Earlier, the company indicated it would not go beyond the terms it had offered in previous redundancy packages at the plant.
Just before the meeting began at 2 p.m. the result of a ballot showed that the workers had voted overwhelmingly for industrial action if the company was not prepared to pay what the Labour Court proposed. The works council is to hold a mass meeting of workers at a Ballyfermot social club on Monday at 10 a.m. to explain the new terms and recommend acceptance. Balloting will follow and should be concluded by lunchtime on Wednesday.
Welcoming the company decision to accept the Labour Court proposals, a SIPTU regional secretary, Mr Jack Nash, said: "We also welcome the fact that they won't be taking any major parts of machinery out of the plant before the new year. This will give us time to evaluate the viability of an employee buy out.
The works council secretary, Mr John Flannery, said it would be unanimously recommending acceptance of the package. He made a special plea for 18 employees of R.H. Catering, a local sub contractor which runs the factory canteen. The contractor says it is unable to pay the redundancy terms and Mr Flannery appealed to Continental to include the caterers in the package.
He said the unions had urged the Minister to adopt a "no nonsense approach" with Continental when he meets its chairman, Mr Hubertus von Grunberg, on Sunday, over its failure so far to find a buyer for the plant.