Xerox continued to hire staff at its west Dublin site even as the groundwork was being laid for outsourcing and likely redundancies, workers said yesterday.
Several staff members working for the document processing giant at the Ballycoolin industrial estate in Blanchardstown said they had started work within the past fortnight. "That's what I don't understand," said one worker, a German man who said he started at Xerox just one and a half weeks ago.
"They have a recruitment agency, and they're recruiting like mad - I don't know what for," said the man, who declined to give his name.
Approximately 900 Xerox call centre workers in Ballycoolin will be affected when their jobs are outsourced to IBM from September 1st.
Some workers at the Ballycoolin "Welcome and Support Centre" will be redeployed and others will be offered redundancy, IBM has announced. Other jobs will be lost through natural attrition, the company said in a statement.
But workers have said that there appear to be strict conditions attached to the redundancy deals.
The bulk of the staff at Ballycoolin are foreign workers who earn approximately €20,000 per year, and yesterday many of them seemed confused about whether their jobs will be lost or shifted to other locations in Europe.
"The only thing they've said is we're going to be relocated somewhere," said Hanna Majaniemi, from Finland. "It could be here in Europe or it could be further away."
There is some speculation that the Xerox jobs will be shifted to Bulgaria.
Yesterday, none of the workers contacted said they would be prepared to move with the jobs to eastern Europe.
"I'm here to save money and learn English," said one man. "How can I do that in Bulgaria?"
Another man, Juan, a Colombian, had been recruited through an agency two weeks ago when he arrived in Ireland. He had been told that his job would go, he said. "I hate this company," he said. "Our jobs will go to Bulgaria, India, Scotland or the Philippines."
Another worker, a Frenchwoman named Danielle, was one of the few who knew some details about her future with Xerox.
Her section of 15 workers had been told that redundancies will be available to them only if IBM does not offer them similar positions and wages in another location. Redundancies will not be available to workers who refuse to move overseas, she said.
"We were told that if people have been working here less than two years, then they will receive six weeks' allowance. If they have been here more than two years, they will receive 13 weeks' allowance."
Danielle said she had been in Ireland for seven years and would be unlikely to move offshore to work for Xerox.
Tony Hauta, from Finland, said he would leave Ireland if the call centre work moved to eastern Europe. "I have a university placement in Finland so I will return there to work."