MANAGEMENT AT Element Six yesterday agreed to restore 300 employees that were on short-time over the past number of months to full-time status.
The concession was made at a three-hour meeting yesterday between general manager Ken Sullivan and Siptu and others unions.
The restoration of workers to ‘‘full-time’’ status is to remain in place while negotiations continue between the two sides on the unions’ bid for an improved severance deal.
The workers were on short-time as the facility was operating at 40 per cent of its capacity.
The 370 workers made redundant on Wednesday are facing redundancy deals that are almost one-fifth of what was on offer five months ago with workers with 25 years’ experience who would have received €140,000 in February now due to receive €30,000.
Both Siptu and senior management were last night declining to comment on the negotiations. When contacted, Mr Sullivan said: “I’m not prepared to comment, but I can say we are talking. We are in process.”
It is understood that the talks yesterday did not reach the issue of the redundancy deal terms and more talks are scheduled to take place.
Before going into the talks yesterday, Siptu spokeswoman Mary O’Donnell said Element Six “a big company, cash rich, has made huge profits here and elsewhere”.
She said: “We will be expecting that they will now be treating the workers with the dignity which they deserve.”
The most recent accounts filed by Element Six Ltd underline the blow Wednesday’s announcement is to the mid-west. The accounts show that the company’s employment costs in 2007 at Shannon were €55.8 million – a jump of 29 per cent on the 2006 figure of €43.2 million as the company employed an additional 39 employees during the year.
Limerick East TD Kieran O’Donnell (FG) last night said: “The package that Element Six is now offering the workers is unacceptable. It runs in the face of the goodwill that has been built up on the ground since 1963.
“It is a fraction of what workers have been offered in recent years.”
