Waterford Crystal Workers Warned Jobs Are on the Line
The boss of the Waterford Wedgwood PLC crystal and china group told its workers today that they could lose their jobs if they reject new cost-cutting measures.
“Further sacrifices must now be made. . . . Anything else leads to commercial suicide,” chief executive Patrick Galvin said in a letter to the group’s 2,000 crystal workers in Waterford.
Among the most highly paid industrial workers in Ireland, they have angrily rejected management plans to stop bonuses, cut contract staff by 250 and bring in longer hours. Six months ago they agreed to a three-year wage freeze.
The crystal and china group is weighed down by debts of up to 150 million Irish punts ($235 million), and sales have slumped in its crucial British and U.S markets.
The dispute has gained new urgency since Tony O’Reilly, the Irish-born chairman of U.S. food giant H. J. Heinz, recently put together a group of foreign investors in his Fitzwilton PLC industrial holding group to negotiate to buy a stake of up to 29.9% in Waterford. An interest of that size, the highest that can be held without having to make a full takeover bid, is valued at 70 million punts ($110 million).
