Workers threaten sit-in protest over closure at Tara Mines

Siptu divisional organiser Adrian Kane. File picture: Sam Boal/Photocall Ireland

Trade unions at Tara Mines are planning a mass sit-in if they cannot resolve outstanding issues over the proposed shutdown of Europe’s largest zinc mine.

Negotiations over the decision by Boliden, the company that operates Tara Mines, to temporarily shut it down have failed to yield a solution. The company has announced the planned shutdown is to go ahead and as many as 650 employees will be temporarily laid off as a result.

Siptu divisional organiser Adrian Kane has said there must be an agreement on staffing levels and layoff terms and conditions before workers will leave the mine. He told the Irish Examiner:

Unless the issues we are engaging the company directly in are resolved to our satisfaction, our members will not be leaving the mine.

“We are continuing to talk to the company.”

The talks started after the company announced on June 13 it would temporarily suspend operations and place the mine into a “care and maintenance” arrangement from mid-July.

Workers will be temporarily laid off at the mine, which opened in 1977 and which produces more than 2m tonnes of zinc per year.

The decision shocked unions and workers as, just two years ago, mineral reserves at the mines represented “an equivalent amount for seven years of full production”.

The company has stated it is “cash flow negative, due to a combination of factors including operational challenges, a decline in the price of zinc, high energy prices and cost inflation”.

During meetings on Monday and Tuesday last week, the unions presented management with suggestions for cost-saving and operational improvements.

But in a statement issued on Wednesday, the company said: “The management has reviewed in detail all proposals presented and believes measures presented have potential to deliver benefits over the medium to long term.

“Unfortunately, the proposals will not sufficiently address, in the short term, the significant and unsustainable losses that the business is currently experiencing.

“It is therefore with great regret that the decision to temporarily suspend operations and place the mine into care and maintenance from mid-July is unavoidable.”

Mr Kane said there are three areas the unions are engaging management with: staffing levels during the care and maintenance period; terms and conditions for those who are being laid off; and how the layoffs will be managed in terms of workers eventually returning to work.

He added: “Only government intervention can prevent the mine from going into a care and maintenance phase.”