Two weeks ago, I spent Thursday and Friday in Dublin and Limerick with a delegation from the European Parliament, which included also, MEPs Marian Harkin and Proinsias de Rossa and involved Alan Kelly and Sean Kelly in consultations.
The delegation was to assess if the European Union Globalisation Fund (EGF) was being deployed effectively in the interests of thousands of workers who lost their jobs when the major computer company, Dell, closed its manufacturing base in Ireland early last year.
The EU launched the EGF in 2006 to provide, “specific, once-off support to facilitate the reintegration into employment of workers in areas, sectors, territories, or labour market regions suffering the shock of serious economic disruption.” The EU identifies 2,480 workers who lost out, having worked directly for the company or for much smaller downstream companies.
Of course, thousands more workers lost out from the sharp drop in spending power in the mid-West region due to the closure. That, along with the collapse in construction, explains the shocking rise in unemployment in that area from 14,000 a few years ago to 39,000 today.
The EU has pledged €14.8 million to the fund for former Dell workers with the Irish Government adding another €8 million. This funding is to be used to allow workers to access different kinds of education and training courses, to set up small enterprises or self-employment where they come forward with proposals or other appropriate measures.
Dell was a non-union company. However, in the wake of the closure, the former workers have organised themselves in a very impressive fashion. The Dell Redundant Workers’ Association has about 1,600 of the former workers registered and provides a service of individual advice and support for the members while dealing with the practicalities of the available globalisation funding,
We found the workers deeply frustrated with the arrangements for the application of the globalisation funds. The Department of Education and Fás are in charge of administering the fund. While the Dell workers have warm words for some of the personnel they deal with on a local level, they are scathing about what they see as a major inflexibility and bureaucracy in the general administration of the fund. Not being able to access courses of their choice and an inadequate commitment of start up funding for enterprises, especially in view of the present credit crunch, are major complaints.
Funds not allocated by June 2011 will be lost. The Association says there is a real danger that a substantial amount will not be utilised because of the State’s obstructive approach. It’s vital to get this right as Waterford Glass and SR Technics workers are up next.
Watching all this is deeply frustrating from a more general point of view also. The whole situation sums up the chaos brought about for working people by the bare knuckled scramble for profits in the capitalist marketplace. The fact is that Dell was making profits in Limerick, but not enough profits to satisfy its major shareholders. Internationally the company made a clear profit of $1.4 billion in 2009.
However, the insatiable drive for more meant the company callously abandoned the workers in Ireland and moved operations to Poland, especially for cheaper labour. However, graphically illustrating that the race to the bottom knows neither morality nor humanity, Dell has now outsourced production work from Poland to a company called Foxconn in China.
Foxconn, owned by a Taiwanese billionaire, has been in world headlines recently following the suicides of ten workers at its massive manufacturing facility in Longhua, south China. Besides Dell, this company manufactures for many other western computer and mobile phone companies. The workforce made up of young migrant workers from around China, are forced to live and work in the biggest sweatshop in the world, a human equivalent of battery hen production, hence the desperation of some.
Meanwhile, back to the workers struggling in Ireland as part of this process. Issues that need immediate redress include the need for senior officials in the Department of Education and Fás to engage immediately with the ex Dell workers’ representatives and to clear the bureaucratic blockages holding up progress on the full utilisation of the available funds. Also, there are 300 laid off workers from Dell’s Cherrywood facility in Dublin not included by the Irish government in the funding application.
It will be a scandal if, this time next year, funds that should be used to assist the worker victims of globalised greed are instead returned to the EU. The biggest scandal though is that the EU itself has pushed the very policies of neo-liberal capitalism which facilitates the vicious drive for profits – the same policies which caused the financial and economic collapse that has left millions of European workers in the same plight as the former Dell workers.
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