Trade union Siptu has said it will seek to engage with management of the Glen Dimplex plant in Newry where staff have been told 51 jobs are to go as part of the firm’s ongoing restructuring of its operations.
The union says the job losses would represent almost half of the workforce at the site in Newry were Glen Dimplex, then Glen Electric, was originally founded just over 50 years ago.
Two years ago the company said it was to consolidate its operations on the island of Ireland to five sites with the loss of up to 300 jobs and the relocation of some manufacturing capacity to Lithuania.
There was to be significant investment in a number of the remaining locations, including Newry, however. The company predicted that more people would be employed by 2029 at the end of an envisaged transition period linked to the development of products related to renewable energy.
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The latest announcement is understood to be a part of that plan and a spokesman for the company said: “Overall, headcount reductions at Glen Dimplex remain substantially unchanged from those announced two years ago’”
However, he said, “the composition and timing of those reductions has been impacted by the slower pace of the energy transition”.
[ Glen Dimplex slumps to €7.7m pre-tax loss as demand for heat pumps slowsOpens in new window ]
Siptu organiser Niall McNally said the announcement in relation to jobs at Newry was in “stark contrast” to the assurances previously received and had left staff there feeling “betrayed and misled”.
The union said its members feared the job losses would undermine the wider long-term viability of “a strategically important manufacturing facility”.
“The union is calling on Glen Dimplex to reconsider its proposals urgently, to engage meaningfully with Siptu and the workforce, and to fully explore alternatives to compulsory redundancies,” he said.
