Hope and despair as Dell layoffs begin

THE 470 Dell workers who finished up at the plant yesterday as part of the phased close-down will return this morning to collect their redundancy cheques and P45 forms.

This is the first tranche of layoffs since the announcement by the company on January 8, that the entire personal computer manufacturing operation was being transferred to Lodz in Poland with the loss of 1,900 jobs by the end of the year. Since then, the company announced that 100 of the 1,000 workers in the back up services area are also to be made redundant.

Redundancy cheques being given out today will amount to around €24,000 for most workers who have about 10 years service with the company. Tony O’Shea, 55, who has worked at Dell for the past eight years said yesterday he and a group of colleagues have organised a farewell dinner tonight.

He said: “We are in the shipping department and some of the lads organised a dinner in the Texas Steak Out in the city centre. We have been told to go in tomorrow to collect our redundancy cheques and P45 forms. I have built on an extension to my house and owe the credit union money, so my redundancy money will [go towards] paying for the work on the house and paying off the credit union. We will collect our redundancy and that’s it. We will then be finished at Dell.” He said while there is a lot of despondency about job prospects, he intends to get out and look for work.

“People should not lose heart either as a group, as individuals or as a nation. We need to have hope and not depend on task forces of the Government to get us jobs.” Dell plans to complete the close-down operation by next January.

Another worker who asked not to be named said: “I am married with three children. My wife has also lost her job recently and we won’t be able to pay the mortgage. I don’t know what we are going to do. There seems to be nowhere to turn. Even now for the next few months we will have to fork out extra money on our mortgage due to the mess the Government made of the budget. They just don’t give a damn about people like us.”

It is expected that up to 8,000 other workers in the region will lose their jobs due to the Dell move to Poland. Banta, now known as RR Donnolly, whose sole customer is Dell is also to close its 450-job operation and move to Poland. Dell is moving to Poland as a cost saving exercise. The firm has set out a target of reducing costs by $4 billion (€3bn).

Limerick mayor John Gilligan has been highly critical of the Dell decision to close the plant and said the firm had no commitment to this country. Dell employs a further 1,300 workers at a call centre operation in Dublin. There are now fears this centre will also be closed down with the work moved to lower-cost countries.