Endesa staff accept layoffs deal
Wednesday March 10 2010
THERE has been a 100 per cent take-up on the voluntary redundancies put before staff at the Endesa power station in Tarbert last month.
Fears of forced redundancies were allayed this week with the voluntary take-up of 35 redundancy packages at Endesa as part of an overall costcutting strategy involving Endesa's other plant at Great Island in Wexford.
With generous redundancies on offer, it is understood there was little resistance in either plant to the company's plans. Indeed, workers at Great Island over-subscribed to the number of redundancies on offer there.
Endesa workers taking up the package can expect 80 per cent of their pensionable salary to be paid up to and including the end of 2010, as well as a lump-sum payment of 70 per cent of pensionable salary payable at the end of this year or the beginning of next. On top of that will be a tax-free statutory redundancy payment of €3,000, making roughly €15,000 of the entire package exempt from tax.
Fears for the overall security of the workforce at the ageing plant were realised in December when management announced that 35 jobs were to be cut, citing a 'major downturn' of the energy market. Intense negotiations between management and unions in the subsequent months, however, delivered as what many considered a satisfactory outcome.
Apart from the downturn in the energy market, the emergence of new and highly-efficient plants elsewhere in the State is contributing to the pressures on the Tarbert plant.
However, as of last week, Kerry County Council effectively signed off on the company's plans to build a new gas-powered plant adjacent to the existing facility by 2016. Combined with the plans for a gas terminal further west along the coast, Endesa's proposals are seen as representing the region's greatest hopes for an early economic turnaround. Upwards of 1,000 workers could be employed between both plants if they are built at the same time.
- DONAL NOLAN dnolan@kerryman.ie
