OPERATIONS Manager Gad Haran has been sent over by Israeli company IDE, the owners of the Pelagos desalination plant in Larnaca, in an effort to ensure production of water is not interrupted by the strike by PEO union members that started yesterday.
According to the union, approximately 75 per cent of the staff from the plant are members of PEO and were staging their action outside the gates yesterday.
“At the moment, including myself, there are seven of us running the plant and that is enough to keep the plant operational as long as no mischief is done,” said Haran. He added that the company was prepared for trouble, “We hope that nothing will happen but you don’t know how things might escalate.”
He defined ‘mischief’ as industrial sabotage or any acts that would require more staff to be brought in to maintain production levels.
Haran said that under the present situation, normal production capacity could be maintained “for a long time”. He said this was because the plant was fully automatic and many of the staff were employed to carry out maintenance procedures such as recharging of chemicals.
Essential maintenance operations will now be carried out by managers and those staff that have continued to work during the strike, while other less critical maintenance operations are being delayed.
Asked whether the company had considered bringing over staff from their plants in Israel, Haran said, “that is not an option.”
In an effort to restart negotiations between the company and the union, Pelagos have called on Andy Apostolou from the Ministry of Labour mediating services to act as a mediator. Agriculture Minister Costas Themistocleous has already taken precautionary measures in the event of a drawn-out stand off between the two sides, replacing the plant’s average daily output of around 50,000 cubic metres of water by tapping into the supply from the Kourris and Dipotamos dams which, will be processed at the Tersefanou and Kornos refineries.
The dispute has arisen over employees’ reluctance to renew personal employment contracts rather than negotiating a collective agreement that would encompass all the staff. In response to the union’s request, Haran said: “The company are not willing to force anyone to be a member of the union or sign a collective agreement.” He added that he believed the employees at the plant were happy at the level of their salaries and working conditions and benefits.
“We hope that some of our boys come to their senses soon.”
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