Members of the Communication Workers Union at Meta contractor Covalen participated in strike action on Tuesday in a dispute over redundancy payments and collective bargaining rights.
The company announced 420 job losses in November. But that number has since been cut, with about 100 staff understood to have been redeployed over the course of a consultation period.
That engagement process was criticised by striking staff members on Tuesday, however, with one describing it as “bargain basement stuff”.
The company, some of those who were involved say, refused to move on its initial announcement that those losing their jobs would receive only statutory entitlements, with those who had worked at the Sandymount facility for less than two years getting nothing.
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There was also anger expressed that many Asian workers who were being let go were not offered any support in relation to issues with work permits or visas that might arise as a result of them losing their jobs.
Some of the redundancies have already taken place, with the process due to be completed by the end of next month.
One of those involved in Tuesday’s strike said they continued to seek better terms for all of the roughly 300 workers let go, but “we are also out here seeking collective bargaining so that the next time this happens it will be the union negotiating on our behalf, not is in there trying to raise issues, making requests and trying to protect colleagues”.
Many of those affected were employed to carry out annotation work, looking at and assessing online content. Those redeployed are said to have been mainly staff with longer service or in-demand European languages.
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In a statement, Christy Hoffman, general secretary of the international trade union group, UNI Global, said the dispute “highlights the deep injustice at the heart of the outsourcing model in the tech sector, where responsibility is pushed down the supply chain, and workers pay the price. Just as Meta and Covalen profit off these workers’ labour, they should respect their right to collective bargaining.”
Covalen, which has about 2,000 staff, is a subsidiary of the larger recruitment company CPL, a significant employer in Ireland.
The job cuts were announced a month after Meta in the US said it would shed some roles in the area of content moderation. It said this was due to technological advances and the greater use of artificial intelligence in systems to carry out the work.
The company said on Tuesday the number of redeployments now stood at 108, and it remained committed to working with its staff in the hope of adding to that number in the coming weeks.
It said it respected the right of the workers to engage in industrial action but that its “commitment to direct and meaningful dialogue remains unchanged”.
