All Talk

COMMENT

THE announcement last week that Talk Talk would be closing the doors of its Waterford facility and evicting the employees who had served them within 30 days, came as a brutal shock to most.
The IDA has been extremely, uncommonly, forthright in its criticism highlighting the genuine slight this announcement represents. Like most multinational companies coming to Ireland, Talk Talk will have enjoyed generous tax conditions and gorged themselves on an extremely capable Irish workforce in order to maximise their own profits. This use of Irish intellect, skill and contractual dedication played a role but was not solely responsible for, “a five-fold increase in its first annual results since it was demerged from Carphone Warehouse. Its pre-tax profit for the year to March 31, 2011 totaled £57 million, up from £11m a year earlier.” While in the wider context of income generation this might not amount to a hill of beans, it is safe to say the company was in a very healthy financial position. The BBC finance report, from which the above quote is taken from, “Talk Talk said profits were lifted by £55m of cost-savings connected to completing the integration of former sister business, Tiscali”. Clearly this foray into the practice of “cost-cutting” left a deep impact on management as it now seems that the axing of the Irish operation is another exercise in the same vein. No doubt, company profits will have swollen accordingly next year when the figures are published but I doubt very much we will hear how the lives of the people cast aside into redundancy will be progressing.  
Every redundancy announcement is a terrible thing for the mood of the country and devastation for those directly affected. In these times when jobs are so difficult to find, losing one, particularly one that had seemed secure, is a killer blow. The Government and the ministers that sit at Cabinet have been their usual vocal selves in the aftermath of the announcement, proclaiming they will continue to work to create employment and bring jobs to the country. This is a charade and nothing more. They cannot create jobs and they should stop claiming they can. There is more truth in the phrase “bring jobs” but it again is more euphemism than fact. What the Government and ministers can do is hawk the nation on the international market in the hope it can lure a big investor with low tax delights and an educated workforce. The red-light-district overtones of the whole process are uncanny in their echoing of the transaction. And like the sex worker, Ireland is putting itself at direct risk of abuse by having to enter the arrangement. Corporations move in, take what they want then when they have satisfied themselves, cast Ireland to one side without a second thought.
The Irish Independent reported wage costs as the main reason behind the Talk Talk decision to flee Ireland’s shores for South East Asia. In India and the Phillipines workers will be paid 90% less to do the same job as those in Waterford who have now been made redundant. Even the word redundant is a cruel linguistic twist of the knife. Its dictionary definition is no longer needed or useful. This would seem to tie in with the Talk Talk statement released to explain its actions. It cited an expansion of the firm’s online customer service activity. This would seem to indicate that the need for humans is being eroded by the use of machines. It fails to address the question of why, other than bare-faced greed, cheaper humans are being chosen to do the jobs than those who had been employed in Waterford.
The behaviour of Talk Talk towards its employees in Waterford, the IDA and the Irish Government speaks volumes of the relationship between big business and the people of the country. Multinational companies see opportunity in Ireland where the IDA and the Government desperately tries to entice them with sweeter and sweeter deals. When they get here, big business is allowed to behave like the spoiled rich kid at a party; obnoxious but unpunishable. Having taken what they want and smashed up the furniture, the multinational, like the sire of money and entitlement, leaves the wreckage and moves uncaringly on to pastures new.
What has been interesting in the aftermath of the Talk Talk announcement is that, once again, there seems to be an undercurrent of anti-union feeling in the discussion. I do not wish to stand up for individual unions or their behaviour or attitude but the concept of worker solidarity is extremely important and something, that has been repeatedly attacked and denigrated by elements within the media, government and most especially business. A strong, well-organised union can stand up for its workers in cases such as the one in Waterford. It speaks volumes that unions are in part blamed for the flight of jobs to other economies because they fight for better wages and conditions for their members in Europe. So turned by the exploitative, capitalist consensus that workers now readily turn on each other for daring to demand a reasonable working wage and standard of living. Interestingly, Talk Talk recognises no unions so workers in this case are on their own with only EU and Government law to back them. This is an unenviable position to say the least.
Government ministers and IDA representatives queued up to meet with the management of Talk Talk after they had been told the company was leaving in 30 days. They were told to their faces the company would not be having a change of heart and the people it had formerly employed were essentially no longer its problem. Once again, those who could not find work to replace their Talk Talk job will have to fall back on the State. They will now have to survive on drastically reduced benefits because of cuts to the public sector in the aftermath of the financial crisis when banks were bailed out to the tune of billions. The broken State once again is left to pick up the pieces, while the private sector flees to pastures new to exploit them for every penny they can; it’s for the shareholders don’t you know.