Andy Kerr, CWU deputy general secretary, said: “It is no secret that Nortel has been in financial trouble for several months now. However, their action this week has surpassed our lowest expectations of how companies deal with staff in times of trouble.
“It is unjustifiable to sack staff with immediate effect without redundancy pay after several months of deliberation.
“This is a heartless response to the hard working people who kept Nortel working. We’re extremely disappointed and firmly believe this should not be allowed to be repeated in other companies. We also ask Nortel to reconsider their treatment of staff at this difficult time.”
Comms Business Magazine spoke to one Nortel employee yesterday who did not want to be named who has 35 years service with the company and is on a six month notice period who told us that he was being laid off without redundancy payment nor were Nortel honouring his notice period. He said that Nortel acknowledged that this contravened UK law but said they told him it would be cheaper for them even if he sued them for payments.
Whilst this is not entirely verifiable it does lend weight to the on-line blogs detailing individual grievances with the company and its handling of the lay-offs. Yesterday one of those blogs, www.allaboutnortel.com, was raising the issue as to why Nortel was still trading.
At the same time Nortel is pressing ahead with recently introduced channel incentives across EMEA and sales are continuing to flow.