Management at Tara Mines is to meet union leaders today to announce its plans for the future. It has refrained from comment since the surprise result of a SIPTU ballot on Friday in which 300 miners and general operatives rejected restructuring proposals recommended by their own negotiators.
The company is expected to revert to a draft of its original plan, Tara 2005, which it first tried to introduce in July 1996. Under this plan it aimed to increase productivity by 25 per cent, reduce production costs by £3 a tonne and shed 140 jobs.
Most of the redundancies have been achieved since. The company agreed to defer introducing new work practices which would have led to significant reductions in earnings, while a joint union-management steering committee sought alternative ways of reducing costs.
The steering committee came up with cost savings of £2.40p a tonne without reducing the overall earnings of the workforce. These proposals were accepted by unions representing office, technical and supervisory staff. SIPTU miners and general operatives rejected the proposals by 2-1.
A question mark hangs over the future of the mine, which employs nearly 600 people. It is estimated that there is more than a decade of commercially exploitable lead and zinc in Tara.