UNION LEADERS are to meet tomorrow to consider reports that telecoms giant Eircom is to seek up to 2,000 redundancies.
The company has been attempting to reduce its workforce by 1,200 over recent months through a voluntary severance package. However, union sources say a further round of job cuts of 1,500-2,000 is expected shortly.
The firm has been struggling to compete in the recession and incurred an operating loss of almost €500 million in the year to June 2009. During that time Eircom lost 67,000 fixed-line contracts, although its mobile unit Meteor delivered increased revenues and profit.
An Eircom spokesman yesterday declined to comment on a report in the Sunday Independentthat it would seek up to 2,000 redundancies in a fresh round of job cuts over 18 months to two years.
Company chief executive Paul O’Donovan has previously said the firm is facing into a major transformation process likely to involve either a reduction in pay costs or employee numbers. It needs to make significant investments in its telecoms network, while it is also saddled with significant debt.
Senior managers are believed to have hired a consultancy firm to assist in its review of operations.
The national executive of the Communications Workers Union is due to meet tomorrow to consider its ongoing discussions with Eircom. It says it will not make any further comment until it has consulted its members.
The company is understood to have received about 900 applications for voluntary redundancies in recent months as part of a plan to reduce numbers by 1,200.
Eircom’s shareholders include the Employee Share Ownership Trust – which owns 35 pent of the firm – and Singapore Technologies Telemedia.
Meanwhile, neither Bank of Ireland nor AIB would confirm reports that they are planning to axe up to 2,000 jobs between them. The reports suggested Bank of Ireland would announce plans within weeks to shed 1,000 jobs, while they claimed its rival would reveal similar proposals in September.
Bank of Ireland said its costs were down 11 per cent by the end of last year, while the numbers employed have dropped by 1,300 to 14,755 since December 2008.
AIB said it had no advanced plans for redundancies, and did not comment beyond that. The bank is to sell businesses in Britain, the US and Poland, and sources believe this will result in job losses. The State owns a significant stake in each bank.
The Irish Bank Officials’ Association, representing the bulk of staff in both institutions, issued a statement saying it had not been involved in “substantive discussions” with either on job losses.
“It should be remembered that . . . AIB and Bank of Ireland have together already shed over 3,000 jobs through a combination of non-renewal of temporary contracts and non-replacement of staff leaving voluntarily or through retirement,” the union’s statement said.
It added that, in the case of AIB, there has been no indication of job losses on the scale suggested.