The examiner appointed in July to look at the ailing Drogheda company, Thermal Heat Exchangers Systems, is expected to seek a week-long extension of the examinership in the High Court this morning, after a rescue package failed to get workers' approval.
There are 204 jobs at risk, although the rescue plan put to workers proposed that there be about 60 redundancies, 28 of which would be temporary workers. Workers voted 108 to 81 against the rescue plan. Yesterday the plant's managing director, Mr Kevin Kidney, said agreement was necessary in order to attract a £1 million investment in the plan. If no agreement was forthcoming soon the company was likely to be liquidated. "I would suggest that it is likely to be in days rather than in weeks," he said. A SIPTU representative said he was looking for the examinership extension so that further attempts at agreement could be made.
Mr Michael Walsh, SIPTU branch manager, said the examiner, Mr Rory O'Ferrall of Deloitte and Touche, had to decide on whether he would seek an extension in the High Court today, following yesterday's meetings with management and workers' representatives. Mr O'Ferrall was appointed on June 21st after the German family owners, the Reierts, said the plant, which manufactures heat exchangers for refrigeration and air-conditioning systems, was incurring unsustainable losses. Mr Walsh said a rescue plan, involving about 63 redundancies out of a staff of 204, and wage and work procedure changes, had been rejected by SIPTU workers who voted 106 to 56 against the deal on Tuesday. Non-union workers had voted 25 to 2 in favour of the package, he said.
Included in the package were proposals to extend the 39-hour week to 40-hour week and make a daily 15-minute break unpaid. A wage freeze of 12 months, and a reduction in overtime rates until the middle of next year, was also proposed, which would have enticed some new investors to back the factory's continuing operation.
The company has suffered losses of £750,000 in the last eighteen months, Mr Kidney said, but there was a good market for the product. He said that 114 jobs could be "recreated" but a £1 million investment was needed, partly as working capital. If the company was to re-emerge, it was likely that the shareholding would be changed.
"The business is floating around in space and, only for the fact that we are under the protection of the High Court, we would have nothing," he said.
He added that the restructuring plan proposed to increase the working week by 2 1/4 hours, but the basic wage rate of £236 would be increased.
"Essentially what it would mean is that, yes, people would have longer hours but they would have an increase in their basic wage of £6," he said. The plant was established in 1978 by an Italian company, Hiross, and was bought by a German company in the mid-eighties. Two years ago, under the company's restructuring plan, all of the shares were transferred to the Reierts.
