Waterford Crystal set to cut hundreds of jobs

REDUNDANCIES, lay-offs and a pay freeze are feared at Waterford Crystal as part of major cost-cutting measures to be announced today.

Waterford Crystal aims to save more than €18 million through a rationalisation plan which will be presented to shop stewards at the company’s two factories in Waterford City and Dungarvan at 8am today.

Over 1,500 people are employed at the factories and the plan is likely to see up to 100 redundancies with a further 100 contract staff to be laid off. A pay freeze will also be announced.

Waterford Crystal will be the third major Irish brand, after Guinness and Tayto, to announce significant redundancies in the last week.

Last Friday, Tayto cut 179 jobs, and Guinness shed 100 staff in Dublin. The tally of redundancies across the State was over 1,500 by the middle of this month.

A further 170 employees were laid off at a telecommunications firm in Co Mayo yesterday.

The job losses came as the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association chief executive Mark Fielding yesterday warned 35,000 jobs would be lost throughout the Irish economy this year. One in three small and medium-sized Irish companies had shed jobs in the last 12 months, he said.

With the downturn in the economy beginning to bite across all sectors, the employers’ body, IBEC, called for a freeze on public sector benchmarking payments and for 10,000 public sector jobs to be cut to control spending.

While Waterford Crystal workers wait anxiously for news this morning, 170 manufacturing staff at Volex Europe Ltd in Castlebar, Co Mayo already know their fate. They will lose their jobs by the end of the year. About 70 staff will keep their positions in administration and sales.

Volex managing director Steve Cowman said the changes were driven by the slowdown in the worldwide telecommunications industry.

The company specialises in producing cable assemblies for European markets.

SIPTU assistant branch secretary Martina Weir said staff members were “shocked and horrified” by the news.

“You’re talking about 170 people who will be out of work in the next six months. It’s not a situation where you can walk into another job in the current economic climate. It’s going to have a detrimental effect on the workers, the town, and the surrounding communities,” Ms Weir said.

She said the firm had employed up to 1,000 workers in the Mayo capital during the 1990s and, after significant lay-offs in recent years, had pledged there would be no further redundancies.

“We feel betrayed, let down,” she said.

Ms Weir is meeting with Volex management today to discuss the reasons behind the job losses.

Tánaiste Mary Harney described the news as a devastating blow for Castlebar and the surrounding area.

She said the Government was determined to pursue policies which would maintain Ireland’s competitiveness in the face of strong global competition.