It has been revealed by the Meatworkers Union that the employees of mutton and lamb processing trade are concerned about the security of their jobs following the declaration of some more job cuts, on Monday.

The workers presently are also worried that many other job cuts will be announced following the assertion of job cuts by the Silver Fern Farms, which indicates that more than 174 jobs will be sacrificed at two of its processing plants.

It was stated on Monday, by the Silver Fern, that it is planning to close its Canterbury lamb cutting plant and also the rendering and casings departments at its Belfast plant will face a closure under the same job cutting drive. Also, the processor wants to reconstruct and reorganize the coldstore department at Belfast.

According to the National Secretary of the Union, Dave Eastlake, the smaller national lamb kill is pressurizing the meat Companies in the region.

He also added that the union may not be able to save the jobs at Silver Fern's Canterbury lamb plant but that it will recommend the processor to reassess its plans of restructuring parts of the Belfast plant.

Silver Fern Farms is the biggest processor of the country and it is officially known as PPCS. It earlier also sliced 1000 jobs in 2008 at the time of closure of six plants in a rationalization program.