UPC Ireland to cut 350 NTL/Chorus jobs

DMC

UPC Ireland to cut 350 NTL/Chorus jobs

http://www.rte.ie/business/2006/0703/ntl.html
July 03, 2006 18:47

UPC Ireland, the new parent company of cable operator NTL Ireland and Chorus, says it will be seeking around 350 job redundancies from September. Some job losses had been expected when the two companies merged last year.

A statement from the company said that certain activities, currently undertaken by NTL Ireland, will be transferred to Chorus and vice versa. The main areas affected are customer care, finance, networks and Chorus Sports Channel.

Employees and unions are still in negotiations, and will continue to be until the redundancy process concludes in March 2007, the company said.

The company added that it may be able to create up to 140 new positions in the future.

'Consultations with the workforce and employee representatives regarding this transition are ongoing. The aim is as much as possible to find appropriate alternatives within the new structure for those employees affected but a certain number of redundancies cannot be excluded,' a statement from UPC says.

Meanwhile, union officials at the NTL call centre in Waterford city, which employs around 110 people, told RTE News this evening that the centre is expected to close.

channelsurfer

looks like the chorus sports channel is closing too. not a sign of them investing in cable here. every second cabled house in town now has the dreadful mmds aerials on them. so much for digital cable been provided.

paulm17781

From what I've heard of Chorus & support.... I really hope NTL lose less people.

spockety

Have you ever had to deal with NTL customer support..??????

Mayo Exile

Will this merger be a chance for the Chorus digital MMDS service to be improved? A mate in Dundalk has it and from what i've seen i would'nt touch it with a bargepole. The most maddening thing seems to be when you set the box to 16:9 very few of the channels appear in true widescreen. Sky News, BBC News 24 and some of Sky One's programmes appear correctly but others like BBC 1 and 2 and RTE 1 and 2 appear stretched when viewed in widescreen mode i.e they are still in 4:3 format. Surely this is unacceptable in the the so-called digital age and this is a chance for NTL to fix a problem that shouldnt be really there in the first place. Do many Chorus subscribers complain to Chorus/NTL about this?

paulm17781

spockety wrote:

Have you ever had to deal with NTL customer support..??????

Yes. Some are good some are awful. All are better than anything Chorus have ever managed to do. Lesser of two evils.

CiaranC

Chorus support is worse]/i] than NTL? The mind boggles.

Mossy Monk

Mayo Exile wrote:

this is a chance for NTL to fix a problem that shouldnt be really there in the first place

NTL have nothing to do with it

Mayo Exile

NTL have nothing to do with it

Interesting. Who would actually deal with something like this within Chorus/NTL?

Mossy Monk

UPC, seeing as they own it all now

DMC

UPC have kept the old brand name of both companies for retail purposes.

Its a bit like Shell, Royal Dutch Shell no longer own the petrol forecourts in Ireland, but allow the new owners to continue to use the Shell brand.

icdg

Its' likely that at some stage, the NTL name will be shed. Regardless of what happens with the Virgin merger / possible rebrand in the UK, the name is NTL's and UPC won't be allow use it forever. On the other hand while UPC do have full rights to the Chorus name, rebranding it UPC will fit in with the brand used in the rest of Europe, and if they are going to rebrand NTL they might as well get rid of the Chorus name while they are at it.

Alas, it looks like it will be the Chorus people taking over. NTL customer service, it appears, is moving to Chorus' call centre in Limerick...

freefall20

just to point out at no stage has NTL customer service been offered a move to limerick - NTL will shut shop in Waterford in 6 months time leaving 135 ppl unemployed. Every company has good cs and bad cs but no matter how bad or good one companies customer service is NO ONE deserves to lose their jobs!!!

hakenberg

Might I also point out CS is not the only Department in both Companies.

Although Chorus Limerick will be the new Customer service Department for the UPC entity.

140 professional staff are being lost from chorus to NTL.

Including.

All financial staff.
All Marketing staff
Most of the engineering staff.
All Network management staff.
All Human Resources.

bk

hakenberg wrote:

All financial staff.
All Marketing staff
Most of the engineering staff.
All Network management staff.
All Human Resources.

FFS Chorus is a joke in comparison to NTL, there CS staff are awful, far, far worse then NTL, in fact they make the NTL staff look like angels.

Bad, bad decision by UPC, they should have done it the other way around.

paulm17781

freefall20 wrote:

just to point out at no stage has NTL customer service been offered a move to limerick - NTL will shut shop in Waterford in 6 months time leaving 135 ppl unemployed. Every company has good cs and bad cs but no matter how bad or good one companies customer service is NO ONE deserves to lose their jobs!!!

I don't agree with that. Bad staff should lose their jobs. They would probably work harder then....

However this is an awful situation. They should have at least kept any good staff. Never had Chorus but I believe constipation is less frustrating than dealing with them.

Galway

At least they are getting rid of some of the Chorus eng staff. NTL system is better than crappy Chorus.Wonder which epg they will go for in the end? Sligo still analogue MMDS and cable so they a lot of work to do.NTL is all digital now. Chorus engineering leaves a lot to be desired. No widescreen RTE etc on Chorus digital but there is on NTL. They will have to sort out the Setanta issue (On NTL basic but not On Chorus basic) and wow Chorus land will get the City Channel! LOL! Much better selection of radio channels on NTL too. Interesting times ahead!

DingDong

Slightly off topic but word on the grapevine is UPC is looking into wireless internet for their MMDS customers. UPC still has alot of links with NTL UK I reckon it will be about a year before its rebranded. UPC is also creating 200 job so thing's aren't looking too bad for NTL staff

freefall20

DingDong wrote:

Slightly off topic but word on the grapevine is UPC is looking into wireless internet for their MMDS customers. UPC still has alot of links with NTL UK I reckon it will be about a year before its rebranded. UPC is also creating 200 job so thing's aren't looking too bad for NTL staff

NTL staff as I said where NOT given a relocation offer at all, between chorus and NTL a total of 350 people will lose their jobs- WAterford Call centre being the worst hit with the callcentre completley shutting shop. Chorus are only creating another 140 in Limerick to facilitate expanding their customer service department because NTL's customer base is 3 times higher then chorus's customer base this is the only reason why they are employing 140 more people to limerick.