'We've worked like dogs for them for the last six years. We were like robots'

ANGER was the overriding emotion among workers outside TalkTalk’s call centre on the outskirts of Waterford city yesterday afternoon.

The announcement of the centre’s planned closure came just days before workers were due in Britain to celebrate the company’s 10th anniversary.

Many employees turned up at the centre in a state of shock. Some had been on holidays or on days off. Several said they learned of the news on Facebook.

Derek Allen, who has been with the company for eight years, said: “We got an e-mail only yesterday telling us we had a record performance last month; the highest figures ever achieved.”

It was ironic, he added, that the company’s tenth anniversary party was to take place in Manchester this weekend.

“They’re paying for the accommodation for . . . people from Waterford to go over and stay in hotels. They can bring their families . . . they can spend all of this money and at the same time they can’t give us an actual reason as to why our jobs are gone,” he said.

“At the same time they told us this, with no notice; with no indications whatsoever. To tell people who have worked for 10 years in the job in seven minutes that their jobs are gone and the reasons seem to me to be very, very shallow and very cynical,” Mr Allen added.

“They’re spending . . . on a party in a week where they are cutting over 575 jobs,” he said.

Alan Butler, a worker with four years’ service, added: “It’s shocking; I’m disappointed. The way they drive you in there is, ‘Work harder for the company; do this for the company, do that for the company’. And then they completely pull the rug from under you. Not even a phone call.”

Employee Lisa Weldon, said: “They’re being greedy, they’re being selfish, they are being mean. We’ve worked like dogs for them for the last six years. AOL was lovely to work for. The minute TalkTalk took over everything changed. We were like robots, working for them.”

For Nicola Starmer, a mother-of-four working at TalkTalk for the past 19 months, yesterday was her day off.

“I decided to drive out here and as I was driving the lunchtime news came on and obviously I heard the company was making an announcement.”

Company management conceded employees were given no indication prior to yesterday that their jobs were about to go.

TalkTalk’s group human resources director, Nigel Sullivan, said the company was “unhappy” with how news leaked about imminent job cuts before management could inform employees directly.

“We did do some briefings this morning with some of the Government and somehow that information got into the press before we were able to inform staff about our plans,” he said.

“We had to change our arrangements and brief them more quickly than we planned.”