10:32 AM : The Yorkshire Evening Post quotes Unison General Secretary Dave Prentis:
Unison called on the Government to step in and help save jobs at Rayleigh.
General secretary Dave Prentis said: “This announcement will come as a bitter blow and a terrible shock to call centre workers at E.ON. Every redundancy is a personal tragedy, and the loss of hundreds of jobs will hit families in Rayleigh hard. Times are tough and there are very few alternative jobs out there.
“The fact that the company are creating jobs elsewhere will be cold comfort. It is very difficult for families to uproot themselves, and move hundreds of miles away.
“Local businesses and shops are set to suffer, as people will be struggling to pay for the bare essentials. E.ON must think again. They could run a call centre from anywhere, so could choose to keep these jobs in Rayleigh.
“E.ON customers face big bills every month, and the company continues to make massive profits. They have no need to make these outrageous cuts.
“It is clear that the competitive market for energy has failed. It is time that the Government stepped in and took drastic action to bring energy suppliers into line.
“We will be seeking meetings with the company, and working with our members to discuss the next steps we will be taking.”
11:51 AM :The BBC report here – nothing really new, though.
2:40 PM :
We have had the following sent to us by an employee:
The meetings were held in 2 parts of the building because of the number of employees present. One was run by Graham Bartlett, Retail Director UK and the 2nd one by one of his direct reports, David Bird, Customer Services Director. Eon have decided to put all of Credit Management (the part of the business who collect debt/payment from past and present customers) in one place in the country (this location won?t be known until Thursday or later). Credit Management form about 1/3rd or more of the Rayleigh site. Because Eon believe they will have a total of over 1000 spare desks in all their UK sites this year they have decided to rationalise their structure and there will be announcements about this Thursday – although this is likely to be just shuffling jobs/sites in locations where they have other sites very close by and they will be able to relocate staff ie Nottingham.
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The meetings were pretty rowdy and very poor in content with both presenters initially saying how tough it?s been for them (you can imagine how well this went down) to arrive at this decision and to rearrange things because the Echo had said they were going to run the story. It appears one of Eons partner firms in this restructure had leaked info on Monday and the Echo had found this out. It?s not been disclosed who the partner firm was but it was said to not be Eon in any guise.
.Rayleigh site is expected at this stage to carry on working as normal with no loss of work right up to closure on June 30th. All jobs at Rayleigh will go.
.Separate break out meetings were arranged for 3 different times in the day. During these staff were given a high level over-view of what the next few months are likely to look like and what happens for them from a 1-2-1 point of view. Enhanced redundancy terms are there for those who stay to 30th June but not necessarily for those who leave early (this would be a real concern given the timing of the HSBC closure a little later this year?).
.There have been no discussions about the sale of the site, it hasn?t been sold but is owned by Eon (this may include the nursery school at the back and the EDF site too?).
.Eon nearest sites to Rayleigh (call centres/admin) are Bedford, Leicester and Nottingham (multiple locations). The point was raised by many staff that why couldn?t a place with multiple sites be closed and staff relocated if staff then only had to travel 5 miles or so for work at another Eon site, rather than close Rayleigh whose staff have no chance of working at any other Eon sites. This was dismissed because staff didn?t know all the decisions that help the board arrive at the closure of Rayleigh.
.This move will NOT help Eon achieve any of their ?94m cost savings target this year but should contribute to cost savings for 2011 onwards.
4:25 PM : the District Council has posted some helpful stuff on the council website:
Following the announcement that EON plan to close their offices in Rayleigh, Rochford District Council would like to make those who live in the District who are, or have been, affected by redundancy aware of the services that are available to them.
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The Council?s Revenues and Benefits Team may be able to help with rent and Council Tax via the Housing and Council Tax benefit schemes. These are available not only to pensioners and the unemployed but to anyone on a low income.
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The Revenues and Benefits team recommend that those affected contact them immediately if they would like to claim. Benefit entitlement usually only starts from the week after the team receive a claim so don?t delay.
Full information here.
I support everything that Dave Prentis says! The impact on families & the community would be enormous.
Am I older & wiser or just cynical? Land adjacent to Eon is being developed, & the hundreds of houses the government want to put in Rayleigh, need to go somewhere. Using the nearby farmland raised huge opposition. ????????.
This is all very sudden, had anyone heard any rumours? Where has all the money gone? Fuel costs have consistently risen as we all know to our cost!
I will remember the Eon employees in my prayers as they face an uncertain future.
Janet, I spent 11 months out of work once, so I know that unemployment can be desperately demoralising, even without any financial impact. This is a bitter day.