Committee agrees to Dell pay-outs
But the MEPs warned that it smacked of European taxpayers being asked to pay out for the actions of a wealthy corporation and shield them from their responsibilities for their workers.
The Parliament’s budget committee is expected to agree the payment today leaving the way open for the Parliament to vote for it later this month ensuring the 2,840 workers get it before Christmas.
The payment — to be used for retraining and helping to set up businesses — has raised many issues that MEPs have said they will investigate further in the future.
Labour MEP Alan Kelly said they are concerned that the Polish government gave €54.5m state aid to Dell with EU approval to open a new plant that resulted in the loss of the Irish jobs.
They said that Dell should have provided better for the workers they laid off at their Limerick plant and suggested they had the money to do so since they are buying a competitor for €3.9bn.
They fear that employers are using the EU’s globalisation fund to allow them to escape taking full responsibility for their redundant workers.
The committee said that several cases indicate that employers were relying on the fund, “exempting them from the social costs of plant closures and de-localisation and burdening these on the European taxpayers instead, while safeguarding a free hand for businesses to relocate elsewhere with the only motive to increase the return on investment for their shareholders”.
The committee said that while it agreed to the Irish request for funds the closure of the Limerick plant could not be due to the financial crisis as the company had opened a new plant in Poland.
It said the European Commission should get guarantees that Dell will not do the same thing in Poland and move elsewhere once again getting state aid for a new plant.
“We must avoid a repetition of this corporate strategy,” Mr Kelly said.
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