The ESB group of unions is meeting tomorrow to seek renewed negotiations with the company on the future of Ferbane power station in Co Offaly. The involvement of the group suggests that a way out of the current deadlock will be sought through talks at national level following the failure to find a solution in talks on local issues last week.
The company has given the unions until its next board meeting on October 16th to agree to new work practices at the power station or a £15 million refurbishment programme will be cancelled. If the programme does not go ahead Ferbane will close with the loss of 114 jobs. A further 200 jobs in Bord na Mona, which supplies fuel to the station, will also be lost.
An ATGWU official, Mr Denis Blanch, chairman of the ESB group of unions, said yesterday that the unions were fully committed to finding a resolution of the dispute and the group had "been given the total support of all the unions in Ferbane to assist in this exercise".
The group of unions decided on its initiative after meeting shop stewards and local officials in Ferbane yesterday. All the unions, including the MSF which represents the three instrumentation technicians at the centre of the current row, endorsed the group initiative.
The unions may try to negotiate agreement on changes in work practices for all 60 instrumentation technicians in the ESB before the October 16th deadline. However, the other union involved, the TEEU, would have to sanction such an approach.