MANDEVILLE Manchester — Stacy Edwards who tends bar just down the road from the West Indies Alumina Company (WINDALCO) Kirkvine plant laughed quietly on hearing what she clearly thought wasn’t such a smart question.

Did she believe the final termination of permanent employees at Kirkvine would seriously affect her business?

“Everything gone so bad already, mi nuh know if it can get any worse,” she finally replied, having had her laugh.

Leonard Wilson, who provides catering services for the Pam Pam Restaurant in Bellefield — delivering meals to people in communities surrounding Kirkvine and to workers at the plant — had a variant but equally gloomy view.

“Bad as it is now, it is going to get worse,” he said.

Such pessimism is being echoed in the communities around Kirkvine and in the wider Manchester following word that WINDALCO’s 762 permanent employees are to be made redundant on March 31, having been on 60 per cent pay and a three-day work week for the past nine months.

One WINDALCO worker, with 30 years service, told the Sunday Observer that the slashed wages and air of “uncertainty” over the past nine months had made life “very, very tough” for himself and his colleagues.

It meant that for many — some of whom had joined angry demonstrations outside the Kirkvine plant late last year — the company’s decision to bring “closure” by implementing the redundancies was very welcome.

Though, as the WINDALCO veteran who declined to be named pointed out, the uncertainty would now continue for younger workers especially.

“Everybody wanted redundancy, but now if you don’t get a job quickly you going have to use up the money, then what?” he said.

For workers at Kirkvine’s sister plant at Ewarton in St Catherine, there is hope following news that WINDALCO is contemplating a possible reopening by the end of the year. This, on the strength of a generally positive outlook in the metals market, as the world slowly pulls out of the worst economic recession in decades.

But experts have discounted “near term” prospects for reopening of the Kirkvine plant.

The WINDALCO operations in Manchester and St Catherine with joint capacity of 1.2 million tones of alumina as well as Jamaica’s largest alumina plant Alpart (1.62 million tones) in Nain, St Elizabeth ceased production early last year at the height of the global recession. All three are majority-owned by the world’s largest aluminium producer, the debt-burdened, Russia-based UC Rusal. Sector analysts say inefficient energy usage capacity at the three plants was a major factor in rendering them uncompetitive as world metal prices fell.

The sudden fall-out slashed by more than half, net earnings from Jamaica’s bauxite/alumina sector estimated in recent years at approximately US$500m, and forced more than 2,000 relatively highly paid workers out of jobs.

The bauxite/alumina losses left the Bruce Golding-led Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) Government battling to meet budgetary demands. It has been a pivotal reason for the decision to return to a borrowing relationship with the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

According to Winston Lawson, president of the Manchester Chamber of Commerce, an informal survey in mid-2009 had retailers in sections of Manchester reporting a significant decline in business after the bauxite/ alumina crash. However, said Lawson, “retailers of security services said their business was up”.

The latter finding appeared to reflect police reports of a surge in property crimes such as break-ins following the closure of mining and refining operations.

Member of Parliament for Central Manchester Peter Bunting argued that increased property crimes was a natural consequence since much of the money that had been in circulation previously would have dried up.

“If you think about it a bauxite worker may have started an extension on his house and he suddenly has to stop because he doesn’t have a job. So all of a sudden the labourer or casual worker who would have had a job at that construction site is unable to earn … and then you have all those small operations such as cook shops and unskilled labourers in mining areas who suddenly have no income…,” said Bunting.

As happened at Alpart following redundancies there last year, WINDALCO will be hosting seminars early next month to prepare its staff for life after bauxite and to give people investment and entrepreneurial advice.

“There will be a number of sessions covering different areas,” explained Kayonn Wallace, WINDALCO’s senior communications officer.

Bunting, himself an investment banker, and Lawson suggested that the redundancy programme could prove positive for those receiving sizeable redundancy packages.

“It could prove a positive thing for those with enough money to consider entrepreneurial ventures or simply income investment,” Bunting said.

Lawson argued that the partnership of government and banks aimed at reducing interest rates would be helpful. The Manchester Chamber would be urging that financial houses “show flexibility” in the handling of loans at this time, said Lawson. He suggested that for WINDALCO workers the delay since the close of production early last year should have prepared them for the “way forward”.

A concern for communities with chronic water problems around Kirkvine involves trucking of the priceless liquid — a service traditionally provided by the alumina plant.

On that score at least, they need not worry, according to Wallace.

“We will continue supplying water to the affected areas. Likewise, we will supply water to the Mandeville Public Hospital in the event of an emergency,” she said.