Eircom plans to cut 1,000 staff in January

dahamsta

ENN

The Sunday Times reports that Eircom is aiming to reduce its staff numbers by 1,000 people in January, with staff likely to be offered redundancy packages of EUR100,000 per person. According to the article, Eircom is considering extending the redundancy package to workers who have between two and five years' service. So far, the paper said about 800 Eircom staff are believed to have taken up an existing redundancy deal with an average payment of EUR90,000 per person.

MDR

Good Grief ...

ando

are those the most generous redundancy packages you've ever seen ? If i was with eircom, I'd take it and leave while I could

Hannibal_12

100,000!, times 1000, 100 million in redundancy packages alone. I wonder how they can afford to pay such generous redundancy settlements(rhetorical question).

PiE

Yea read that meself, shockin'. There were two articles on the Irish Times website, one about Eircom and one about NTL... the headlines sounded interesting, pity I don't have a subscription to read the story :] If anyone does, they were under Business.

pork99

my first thought was, culling 1,000 of 'em, thats a good start

but €100,000 for several years of chair moistening* WTF?


*as in Smithers to Mr Byrnes "Homer Simpson, one of your chair moisteners from sector 7g"

Dustaz

jesus h christ,

*sounds of Dustaz kicking himself hard*


A good few years ago i was told that if i applied for a job in a certain area of eircom, i could probably walk into it. (It was during the whole rondomondo/TV over DSL fiasco). I halfheartedly looked into it, but decided to stay where i was. Clearly, i never really had any regrets but Jesus, to think i could be looking at 100 big ones right now ........

stormkeeper

Originally posted by Hannibal_12
100,000!, times 1000, 100 million in redundancy packages alone. I wonder how they can afford to pay such generous redundancy settlements(rhetorical question).

this proves just how much we're ripped off....

Tazz T

There must be a vacancy going somewhere there.

Get employed for a couple of months, take the money and run.

BigEejit

That is an incredible amount ....

I work for an American multinational and there were voluntary redundancys recently .. I think people got 7 weeks plus statuatory per year of service, this was considered to be pretty good ...

How many weeks pay are eircom giving per year of service? .. are those 800 people who have already left with and average E90,000 all long time Ericom employees? e.g. if the average length of service was 30 years then Eircom are some of the stingiest ba$tards going..... but it is unlikely that they were all that old.

BoneCollector

I wonder how they can afford to pay such generous redundancy settlements(rhetorical question).

Simple!
ODTR removes cap
we get screwed and pay for the redundacies

LFCFan

just goes to show they are so incompetant they can't even manage to lay people off right. They could spend that €100,000,000 upgrading their infrastructure and tell the 1000 useless €ircon staff to take a hike. I'm sure they could fire them for gross incompetance. To think that one of those twats I've had to deal with in there is gonna walk away with a sh1t load of money for being useless makes my blood boil.

spongebob

€ircon has 1.6 million POTS lines

Each Line cost €20 a month including VAT

Thats €16 ex vat * 1,600,000

That makes €25.6 a month

WE will ALL have to pay 4 months line rental so that €ircon can get rid of 1000 Biddies. They have about 3000 Biddies so it will cost us all our line rental for 1 year to get rid of the lot of the useless cows.

Remember that most of the Biddies have between 20 and 30 years service and will be largely unemployable when they leave €ircon. They were hired as switchboard operators and the like in the pre-digital electronics days.

€ircon will still be somewhat overstaffed after all that.

Sheesh.

M

MDR

A wee bit too harsh

tell the 1000 useless €ircon staff to take a hike.

Everyone is entitled to a redundacy settlement. It isn't really their fault their employer is over staffed, they don't run the place.

To think that one of those twats I've had to deal with in there is gonna walk away with a sh1t load of money for being useless makes my blood boil.

Nor is it his/her fault that he didn't have the training or support or motivation to help you out ...

just goes to show they are so incompetant they can't even manage to lay people off right

The communications workers union own 15% of Eircom, if they don't give people a very generous settlement, the union would go nuts ....

LFCFan

Originally posted by MDR
Nor is it his/her fault that he didn't have the training or support or motivation to help you out ...

I wouldn't mind so much if it was just a case of them not knowing their stuff and being useless in that way but more often then not I've had to deal with some complete bitch/bastard who is rude and useless. Lack of knowledge I can live with, rude customer service agents I cannot.

jmcc

Originally posted by MDR
A wee bit too harsh

Everyone is entitled to a redundacy settlement. It isn't really their fault their employer is over staffed, they don't run the place.

Nah - fsck 'em.

Eircom ripped the people off so I find it hard to have mercy on them. The method I would suggest would not involve redunancy payments and it would be a very effective solution.

Regards...jmcc

DeVore

Jesus at 100,000 notes they dont NEED our sympathy....

Anyway, we can all think of at least ONE person who could be let go (and seems to WANT to be )

DeV.

pork99

WE will ALL have to pay 4 months line rental so that €ircon can get rid of 1000 Biddies. They have about 3000 Biddies so it will cost us all our line rental for 1 year to get rid of the lot of the useless cows.

Sarin gas deployed in the air conditioning in the right places might be more cost effective

jd

Originally posted by MDR




The communications workers union own 15% of Eircom, if they don't give people a very generous settlement, the union would go nuts ....

ESOT own about 29%

spongebob

Originally posted by jd
ESOT own about 29%

The generous settlement for the Biddies is so that the Vulture Capitalists incl O'Reilly can buy the ESOT out completely during the next year.

Would anybody actually employ a Biddy for their unique customer service skills ???

M

MDR

The generous settlement for the Biddies is so that the Vulture Capitalists incl O'Reilly can buy the ESOT out completely during the next year.

Is that a guess or do you have it on good grounds ?

spongebob

Yes.

Valentia cannot have an exit strategy for the business while the ESOT own 29% of it. Therefore they have agreed to buy the ESOT out once about 3000 employees have been trimmed.

The current Valuation for €ircon is about €2.5Billion which is the Valentia price for it see Here

~30% of that is (the ESOT) is about €750M .....the ESOT owes a bit too.

If they have 8000 employees after the Biddy-Cull then each employee will crudely own about €100,000 of the company.

~€750m / 8000 like.

The Biddys are being bought out of the ESOT if you will.

M

jd

They will still be members ooof the esot, just they wont get the last two alocations..
ie they forgo 2/11 of the notional 100000

MDR

Reminds me of 'Other People's Money' feat 'Danny DeVito',

I thought Valencia payed €2.5Billion for the 51% of the shares orginally owner by the government. Meaning the company is acutally worth (ignoring telecom market volitality) €5billion ?

If ESOT own 29% of the company, does telenor not own a large chunk of it as well ?

*Slightly confused Ray*

sceptre

Originally posted by MDR
Reminds me of 'Other People's Money' feat 'Danny DeVito',

Indeed it does:)

I thought Valencia payed €2.5Billion for the 51% of the shares orginally owner by the government. Meaning the company is acutally worth (ignoring telecom market volitality) €5billion

No - they couldn't force compulsory acquisition of the small investors until their shareholding went over 80%. It was the reason ESOT's decision was so significant at the time - effectively no-one could acquire (as opposed to control) the company without them. So, Valentia hit 50%-odd, added ESOT to their votes when they were effectively made part of the consortium and made their 80%. Then they went and compulsorily aqquired the remaining 20%.

So (if my addition is still up to scratch), ESOT have their 29% (I didn't know it was that high but they've been getting their allocations since so it was lower at the time of the takeover) and Valentia-proper own the remaining 71%

Hannibal_12

Originally posted by Muck
Yes.

Valentia cannot have an exit strategy for the business while the ESOT own 29% of it. Therefore they have agreed to buy the ESOT out once about 3000 employees have been trimmed.

The current Valuation for €ircon is about €2.5Billion which is the Valentia price for it see Here

~30% of that is (the ESOT) is about €750M .....the ESOT owes a bit too.

If they have 8000 employees after the Biddy-Cull then each employee will crudely own about €100,000 of the company.

~€750m / 8000 like.

The Biddys are being bought out of the ESOT if you will.

M

Well the maths makes sense anyway. Let me just qualify my earlier statement by saying that I do not begrudge anyone a fair redundancy package but as I said (rhetorically) to pay such massively generous ones is an indication of just how thoroughly they have been bleeding businesses and consumers dry over the years.
As for the "biddy-cull" (LOL) I hope it goes someway in bringing €ircon up to speed (affordable ADSL etc) in the 21st century, although I doubt it.

highlight

No,

Telenor were involved in Esat Digifone, but that was a long time ago and before the O2 buyout and rename

KPN and Telia owned part of Telecom Eireann but that was sold back to the company.

daithi54

I'm sorry I can't let this go on without replying...the idea that 1,000 eircom staff will get € 100,000 each next January is ludicrous and you know it. Take from someone who knows, the rumour is COMPLETELY untrue, believe me I wish it were otherwise. For god's sake ye're worse that fismongers wives for gossiping !!

Dustaz

Originally posted by DeVore
Anyway, we can all think of at least ONE person who could be let go (and seems to WANT to be )

Haha

spongebob

Indeed Daithí I see ......funnily enough the ASAI backed me when I complained about These

Originally posted by daithi54
I'm sorry I can't let this go on without replying...the idea that 1,000 eircom staff will get € 100,000 each next January is ludicrous and you know it. Take from someone who knows, the rumour is COMPLETELY untrue, believe me I wish it were otherwise. For god's sake ye're worse that fismongers wives for gossiping !!

Do correct any or all of the following

The target demographic for the Biddy-Cull is

over 40
female 'clerical' operative
leaving cert (maybe...probably not)
earning c.30k+ PA
25 years service typically

the redundancy will be near enough €100k or so if you match the above criteria and will kindly go.

eircom do not really want to lose too many of the
20-30 years old
mixed male/female 'clerical' operative
third level education
earning 25-30k
5 years service typically

There are 1000's in Eircom who do match target non?

The CWU will allow the management to offer selective redundancies this time, they will be quotad if the management wishes.

There will be more that one round of redundancies next year, the first will open in January

M

daithi54

Sad...seriously sad. Any wonder folk think you lot are a collection of moaning anoraks. I'll leave you all to your delusional little world. Bye now.