Staff at Waterford Crystal were yesterday absorbing the blow that short-time working will not be sufficient to save all 1,600 jobs at the company. About 100 staff at the company's Waterford and Dungarvan plants will be laid off as part of the overall Waterford Wedgwood strategic review announced yesterday.
A local Fianna Fβil TD, Mr Brendan Kenneally, said the job cuts were "extremely disappointing" given that Waterford Crystal had already announced the introduction of a three-day week.
Union-management negotiations on the short-time working plan, announced in September, are expected to conclude in the next week. Both sides have undertaken not to reveal details to the media but it is understood that a formula other than a three-day week may yet emerge. Management has stressed that it needs to reduce supply to match demand for the company's products but is willing to consider other ways to achieve this.
A week-long shutdown of the two plants was implemented last month and it is understood a repeat of this move, rather than ongoing short-time working, is one of the options being considered.
The company says it is confident that forced redundancies will not be necessary. Its chief executive, Mr John Foley, said the job cuts would be implemented through a combination of voluntary redundancies, early retirements and departures of contract staff.
The Waterford-based Minister of State for Finance, Mr Martin Cullen, said nobody liked to see job losses but, in relative terms, the number of redundancies in Waterford was not as high as it could have been. "I want to thank the company for that and obviously hope that those who will be losing their jobs will get a good package."
The job cuts are the latest in a series of blows to hit staff at the two plants this year. In May the company announced that 43 temporary staff were being let go because of the foot-and-mouth crisis and slowdown in the US economy. Short-time working for the majority of staff was announced in September due to the continuing decline in demand in the United States.
