The Windalco Kirkvine bauxite plant in Manchester as seen in this September 2004 photo. - File

West Indies Alumina Company (Windalco) is to cut the positions of another 250 temporary employees over the next two months as it moves to suspend operations at its Kirkvine plant in Manchester and Ewarton in St Catherine.

However, Windalco said it would be retaining the approximately 850 permanent employees during the temporary shutdown.

"Given the declining global demand for alumina and Windalco's position as a high-cost producer, we are forced to temporarily suspend our production," Windalco Managing Director, Andrew Currie, announced in a statement yesterday.

He said this was the only economically appropriate measure.

The development comes days after Prime Minister Bruce Golding met with a top executive of UC RUSAL, which owns Windalco, to discuss the future of the company's operations in Jamaica.

However. Mining and Tele-communications Minister Derrick Smith said the Government was negotiating with UC RUSAL to delay the temporary closure of Windalco.

At the same time, Smith said he was not surprised by the decision to close WINDALCO in light of the state of the bauxite/alumina industry.

The news of the impending closure took the chairman of the Jamaica Bauxite Institute, Dr Carlton Davis, by surprise.

He told The Gleaner/Power106 News that the move would have significantly adverse implications for the national economy but more so for the communities in which the plants are located.

Davis also raised concerns that the suspension of operations at WINDALCO at this time could mean the eventual permanent closure of at least one of its plants and he believe the one at Kirkvine might be the victim, since it is older and more vulnerable.

The likelihood of a temporary closure leading to a permanent shut down was first expressed by former Prime Minister Edward Seaga on the Power 106FM talk show, Independent Talk last week.

"He may be right," Davis said yesterday. "But I think we would not be giving up without a fight."

At the same time, the JBI head is worried that Jamaica might lose some of the highly-qualified workers in the bauxite/alumina sector like chemists and engineers because of the uncertainty about their continued employment.

"Sooner or later, what people do is to look at their other options and we may never get them back," Davis said while proposing that the Government embark on an initiative to start a registry of the country's qualified workers.

Amid the development yesterday, Vincent Morrison, president of the National Workers Union, said the union was disappointed that it had not been informed of the decision to suspend operations at WINDALCO before it was made public.

Morrison also said the union was not comforted by the Government that it was doing everything possible to keep the plant open.

damion.mitchell@gleanerjm.com