Diamond workers to vote on strike action

Workers at the under-threat industrial diamond firm Element Six are to vote on whether to strike as management attempt to secure a rescue package, it was revealed tonight.

Union leaders said they wanted to save as many jobs as possible at the Co Clare plant but they also warned that laid-off staff had to be offered better redundancy deals.

Company directors pulled the plug on manufacturing at the Shannon factory last month claiming it was the most expensive of its sites worldwide but local management tabled a last-ditch business plan to keep it open and save 160 jobs.

Unions reacted angrily to the proposal last Friday claiming they had been betrayed with revised redundancy terms.

Staff from Siptu and the Technical Engineering and Electrical Union (TEEU) will be balloted on industrial action over the next few days.

“We must save as many jobs as possible,” Siptu branch organiser Mary O’Donnell said.

“But we also need far better terms for anyone facing redundancy in the present bleak environment.

“Workers at the plant are extremely apprehensive about the future and it is far from clear what the management agenda for the plant is. We require a full and frank disclosure of all the options with them.”

Element Six had initially planned to keep just 80 workers at the plant in research, administrative and customer support roles.

TEEU regional secretary Pat Keane said: “We are all committed to doing everything possible to keep these highly skilled jobs in Shannon. The Mid-West cannot afford to lose more jobs in manufacturing.

“We will exhaust every avenue to resolve the dispute locally if we can and use all the avenues open to us prior to taking industrial action, provided that management adhere to local procedures.

“So far they have been far readier to talk to the media than to their own employees and unions.”