December 6, 2007
Media Release

Sitel workers deserve better - EPMU

The EPMU has invited call centre company Sitel to mediation to negotiate a decent redundancy deal for the 110 Palmerston North workers who are losing their jobs due to Yellow Pages call centre work being outsourced to Manila.

The call for negotiation is a response to the fact the company has offered no redundancy to staff, which means they’ll walk away from their jobs with nothing.

EPMU national secretary Andrew Little says Sitel should accept that in this day and age businesses that lay off workers in these circumstances need to properly compensate them for the loss of their jobs.

“Sitel has done very well out of these workers and out of Palmerston North in terms of profits and loyalty, the least they can do is acknowledge this by not leaving their staff high and dry.

“As a union we’re doing what we can with Teletech to figure out how many of these workers can be kept in work in Palmerston North and also with the city council who are keen to help locate new jobs for these workers in other local call centres, but it’s up to Sitel to make sure our members get a fair redundancy package.

“This is the sort of classic situation that needs to be considered by the Government’s recently established Public Advisory Group on Restructuring and Redundancy which is looking at the adequacy of redundancy rights.”

The Public Advisory Group includes representatives from the CTU, Business NZ and the State Services Commission.

ENDS

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