Siemens agrees to redundancy talks
Siemens IT Solutions and Services (SIS) agreed to the talks after the workers, based at its Blackrock facility, went public on their situation.
The group — 18 full-time and three short-term contract workers — were facing the prospect of having to move to England to keep their jobs after SIS lost a customer support services contract with Yell.
The contract ends on May 2 but Yell plans to provide the service from its own facility in Reading from May 3.
Siemens claimed on Tuesday that the jobs were moving under a “transfer of undertakings protection of employment” (TUPE) process, and told the group of affected workers they should present themselves at Yell’s offices in Reading if they wanted to keep their jobs.
But the Communication Workers Union (CWU) and Labour TD Ciarán Lynch intervened.
It emerged yesterday that following the loss of the contract, SIS engaged with Yell on the potential application of the TUPE process, but that Yell rejected it.
It is understood SIS ruled out the redeployment of the affected staff to other accounts at the Blackrock facility because the Yell contract was for customer support through the English language, and the other help desks at its facility are for other languages.
However, it has now agreed to meet the affected group next Tuesday to discuss redundancy terms.
The CWU welcomed the move and confirmed that it will have a representative at the talks.
“We would welcome any positive moves by company towards recognising employees rights,” CWU organiser Fionnula Ní Bhrogáin said.
Mr Lynch, who brought the situation to the attention of the Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton, said he was glad both sides have agreed to engage in talks.
SIS provides multilingual technical support to international customers from its premises in Cork which was established in 1999.
It employed 237 people at the end of March.
