Some 180 employees of Drogheda Concentrates, where 250 jobs are being lost, held a protest outside the plant on Saturday, and heard claims that the company was accelerating the transfer of work from Drogheda to speed up its closure.
This has been denied by the company, which said that "because of a lack of normal working in recent weeks, it has been necessary to move supply of some product to Ballina in order to meet customer needs".
Two weeks ago 256 staff rang in sick, taking mass unofficial leave for a day.
The company and unions Siptu and TEEU are scheduled to take part in conciliation talks at the Labour Relations Commission today. The distance between both sides relates to severance terms, and the company says it has offered "a very generous redundancy package".
A spokesman for the workers said at the protest that the closure of the concentrate manufacturing plant was "unjustifiable and unfortunate".
He repeated claims that unionised staff were being discriminated against for positions in the Ballina and Athy operations.
Coca-Cola announced the closure of the Drogheda plant two months ago as a result of transferring the production of concentrate for the soft drink to Ballina.
The company said staff could apply for additional positions in Ballina, but unionised workers have said they believe they will not be offered any positions because the Ballina plant is not unionised.