Further 600 redundancies to follow Dell decision

THE Dell closure is set to claim another 600 Limerick jobs with an announcement expected in days from one of the computer company’s major service providers.

Management at Banta yesterday refused to comment on a closure announcement but workers say they are expecting the worst.

One worker said: “We were told to expect news this week but it has not come yet.”

Banta, located adjacent to Dell in Raheen industrial estate, has been totally dependent on Dell’s manufacturing lines which will close with the loss of 1,900 jobs.

Like Dell, Banta has already built another facility at Lodz in Poland and the company plans to transfer its work there. Banta provides a wide range of packaging and other services to Dell.

Another Banta worker said: “We are led to believe that our jobs will go as Dell closes its production lines over coming months.”

Meanwhile, renewed fears grew last night for 1,200 jobs at the Dell call centre in Cherrywood.

The Dublin plant deals with customer service queries from Dell’s Europe, Middle East and African (EMEA) market.

A Dell source said that a senior executive, based in the Dell call centre near London, was now looking at Cherrywood and three other call centres which deal with English language queries from the EMEA.

A Dell source said: “Speculation in the company is that a senior figure from the London call centre has been deployed to look at the four call centres and there is talk that two of the current English language call centres will be closed down to reach the $3 billion [cuts] target.”

Meanwhile workers at Dell are now hopeful that the 20% shift bonus payment will be included in the redundancy package. Workers are angry that the shift bonus was excluded from the redundancy offer made when the closure announcement was made.

The package offers six weeks wages for every year of service with a four-week severance payment.

Workers and Dell are now in talks to try and agree a settlement on redundancy. A worker source said yesterday there were indications that Dell was coming around on the bonus money issue in the redundancy package.

Meanwhile, the EU is investigating if the Shannon region could benefit from the union’s social fund. Ireland has already been granted a total of €375 million from the European social fund over seven years, and can divert some of this to help create alternative employment in the area.

The Government has been investigating if it can draw on the EU’s €500m globalisation fund launched to help retrain workers who lose their jobs when their companies move to cheaper locations.