TALKTALK WORKERS booked for today’s staff party in England who fail to turn up may have to pay flight and other charges.
The company, which announced this week it is to close its Waterford call centre with the loss of 575 jobs, is proceeding with a social day in England for all its staff despite the bad news delivered to Irish workers. The party is to mark its 10th anniversary.
A company spokesman said yesterday he believed some Waterford-based staff would turn up for the party – dubbed the “great getaway” by management. Flights and accommodation were being paid for by TalkTalk and the party was arranged some months ago – before a decision was made on the Waterford call centre’s closure.
“Employees in Waterford are still most welcome to come,” he said. “Of course we understand some of them may choose not to.”
Asked about local speculation that anyone who cancelled their booking at the party would have to pay for their ticket, the spokesman said, “That’s rubbish”. However, he added that, while anyone cancelling who informed the company beforehand would not have to pay anything, it might be different for employees who failed to come without telling bosses.
“If people say they’re coming and don’t turn up, we’ll have to take a look at that. We’ve got flights and hotels booked and we’re more than happy if people don’t come.” He said he had “no idea” how many Irish employees were booked for the staff party.
Speculation that some Waterford workers might travel to the get-together and take the opportunity to stage a protest was discounted yesterday by staff, who are in negotiations with the company over redundancy payments.
“There’s no point in us doing that, because it’s only going to make it worse for us,” Alan Roche of the member services (customer loyalty) department said. Only a “small minority” of employees who have so far been offered a redundancy deal are happy with what’s available, he said.
“Everyone is still kind of in complete and utter turmoil. There’s after being offers made to some people, and only some are relatively happy with it.” An eight-year veteran with TalkTalk, he had taken a year’s leave of absence to travel to Australia with his partner and has only just returned. “I only came back on Tuesday and then, on Wednesday, we were told this [closure news].”
Thomas Atkins said that, as he has only been with TalkTalk for about 19 months, he may not get any redundancy payment.
He did not know how many planned to attend today’s staff party in England. “They’re actually encouraging us to go. It’s just the ugliest thing,” he said, before casting doubt on any possibility of a protest. “We don’t want to go to the effort of going over just to cause trouble. I wasn’t going to go myself anyway.”
Meanwhile, Minister for Enterprise Richard Bruton, due to visit Waterford on Monday, is expected to meet workers from the TalkTalk centre. He will meet local politicians and business interests to discuss the worsening employment crisis in the region, in which thousands of jobs have been lost in the last few years.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny said yesterday that if the Government had been given some more notice of the call centre’s closure, “genuine efforts which will of course now be made, could have been made sooner to impact on a workforce which has been devastated by that decision”.
Meanwhile, one-third of unemployed professionals who signed up to a free networking support forum in Galway have found work over the past two years.
The success of West of Ireland Networking was highlighted by Mr Bruton at NUI Galway yesterday when he paid tribute to its “self-help spirit”. The training, mentoring and networking forum was set up on a voluntary basis in late 2009 by Caroline McDonagh after she lost her job.