A problem solver and champion for workers rights

One of Meath's longest serving trade union leaders has laid down his placards for the last time, as SIPTU's John Regan retired this week.

For 36 years, workers across Meath and the rest of the country would turn to John for help and advice when they ran into problems at work, but he is probably best known for his negotiations with companies like Tara Mines and Lagan Brick as well as NEC Ballivor, where he started his union activism.

It has been a busy last two years in the job for the Ballivor man who found himself in the middle of negotiations when Tara Mines went into care and maintenance in 2023 and he fought with the workers to secure a solution that allowed a return to work at one of the country's biggest employers.

John Regan was born in Birmingham but was brought home to Ballivor when he was just a baby. His father was the late Basy Regan and his mother, the late Nora (Betty) Regan. John was one of six children, he has an older sister, Bernadette and two older brothers, James and Tommy, but sadly his two younger brothers Kevin and Bart died young.

He went to Ballivor National School and Trim Vocational School where he left after receiving his Group Cert. When he joined SIPTU some years later, he went back into education studying among other subjects, industrial relations.

“There was 30 years between doing my Group Cert and the third level courses. It was a nightmare the second time around. I was working and had three children and had to study on my own time. It was a difficult period.”

John started his working life when he was still at school.

“I got a job at Colm Warren's horticultural business where I learned about propagating all sorts of plants, vegetables and fruit and then harvesting them.

“I loved it and to this day I find gardening the most wonderful way to relax.

“I used to cycle to it after school and Colm would leave me home around 7 or 8pm. I started working for him full time when I finished school.”

John stayed there two years before he left to work in Jim Dargan's show jumping stables where among the horses he looked after was Coolronan, who was bought by the army.

“Coolronan was ridden by Captain Con Power when the Irish Team won the Aga Khan trophy in 1977.

“I worked there for 18 months to two years. Jim was a member of the local community council and he heard about a new factory being built in Ballivor and told me I should put in an application.

“I got the job in NEC Semi-conductors, first working nights and then working my way onto day shifts. When I started there in 1976, my wages were £29 a week, which I thought was great money”.

NEC was the catalyst for two major life changes for John, it is where he met his wife, Christine and where he started his trade union activism.

“In 1986, they proposed a split shift, mornings and evenings. There were 16 of us on that shift and we needed a shop steward. I put myself forward to represent them and became an ITGWU shop steward. Christy McQuillan was the branch secretary at the time.

“I got more and more involved in trade unionism and became branch president in 1990 and was on the regional committee for the midlands. Then in 1997 I was offered a full time job with the union.

“Jack O'Connor was the regional secretary at that time and he rang me at NEC one Friday and asked me would I work for the Meath branch of what was then SIPTU and I agreed.

“I went from a weekly wage to a salary and my income jumped, which wasn't always the case for those leaving their jobs to become full time union officials.”

John started work as assistant branch secretary, then became branch secretary in 2001 and in a major restructuring in 2008 became a sector organiser.

“Instead of having county branches, we became responsible for certain sectors.”

Over the years he worked in a number of sectors including manufacturing, energy and construction, spending a period based in the Tullamore office.

He took over responsibility for Tara Mines from Christy McQuillan in 1999.

“No matter what sector I was involved in after that, Tara Mines came with me,” he said.

John has been sector organiser for the construction industry for the past ten years.

Among the many disputes, strikes, sit-ins and redundancy packages he has worked on over the years, there were a number of stand out issues - Tara Mines being one of them.

He had a busy time over the last few years trying to save as many jobs as possible at Tara, negotiate a fair package for those taking redundancy and early retirement, and ensuring a return to work at the end of last year.

He recalls many other disputes at Tara, including one over land in 2009 when the Finnish owners at the time Outokumpu were selling the mine.

“The MD at the time, the late Eero Laatio, proposed to sell the mine and keep the local land bank owned by Tara.”

After many arguments and phone calls, including one by John to the prospective buyers, the land was sold to Boliden along with the mine.

“I said at the time, that land was the workers redundancy if the mine closed.”

Other major crises at the mine included a previous period of care in maintenance in 2001 and a number of disputes including 2012 when the mine came close to yet another period of closure.

Ironically another major issue John found himself negotiating was the closure of his old workplace, NEC Ballivor in 2006, seven years after he left the company.

“I flew over to London to meet the Japanese decision makers with a delegation of shop stewards and Minister Noel Dempsey.

“They told us they wanted to leave Ballivor like a pebble had been dropped in a lake, with no ripples.”

They brought in an Irish consultant to deal with the redundancies and both sides were happy with the deal negotiated.

“There was one issue however in that the workers' defined benefit pension was in surplus and we wanted to know what was going to happen to the excess.

“They were silent on the issue of the surplus for quite a while, so I wrote to the main trustee, copying it to the man we met in London and although they didn't have to, they gave 30 per cent of that surplus to the workers, on top of 100 per cent of their pension entitlement.”

The Lagan Brick closure in Kingscourt in 2012 saw workers striking over redundancies and sitting in for 52 weeks.

John found himself having to defend the union in court when a couple of the workers decided off their own accord to mount pickets on the home of management.

“The Court exonerated us of any involvement - it wasn't a SIPTU picket and later the case against the lads who did the picketing was also struck out.”

John met his wife, Christine, a Summerhill woman, when they both worked in NEC and they married in 1982. They have three children, Ian (39), Sinead (35) and Claire (27).

“When Ian came along Christine gave up work, which wasn't unusual at the time, so we didn't have to worry about childcare. Christine reared the three of them when I was away studying.”

The couple initially lived in the Woodbine cottages outside Dunderry but moved to Athboy 39 years ago and have lived there since.

While John may have retired this week, he certainly won't be taking life easy. A former soccer player with Corbawn United, he has been a referee with the North East Leagues for many years and will continue with that.

A great campaigner for social justice, that isn't likely to change. He is a member of the Construction Industry Advisory group which will oversee a new licencing bill going through the Dail, He is also involved in the EFBWW, a Europe wide construction organisation.

“I will continue on that body, we will continue lobbying and feeding into European legislation. A significant piece of legislation we hope the European Parliament will pass is a legal cap on the amount of sub contractors you can have on a project.

“I am chair of Meath Trades Council and I hope to continue with that too,” he said.

John certainly won't be idle over the months and years ahead, but as he steps down from his main role, he can look back on a long and fruitful career in industrial relations, during which he solved a myriad of problems for his union members in different industries over many years.