Personnel
director at steel giant Corus Allan Johnston has spoken of his frustration that
promised Government support for re-training its workers has not yet
materialised.
As
the 90-day consultation period on the proposed 6,000 redundancies reaches its sixth
week, Corus is in talks today with the unions, the Department for Education and
Employment and the Department of Trade and Industry over retraining
steelworkers. It is looking at the possible use of European Social Fund money
for the areas affected.
“The
absence of this scheme is a source of frustration to us and to all of our
employees and prevents us from giving them the full assistance programme we
wish to make available,” Johnston said.
He
was responding to a letter to Personnel Today from job search adviser Sue Ford,
whose son-in-law works at Llanwern.
“There
appears to be no support available at present, no information regarding
government funding for retraining and telephone calls to HR have been met with
a complete lack of response,” says Ford
in her letter.
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Johnston
said the company had written to all employees across Llanwern and Port Talbot
asking whether they wanted HR professionals to be counselled for redundancy.
“We are trying to create a pool of volunteers and, through re-training and cross-matching,
minimise the number of enforced redundancies.”
A
DfEE spokesman said, “The Government is discussing with the unions and Corus
the most appropriate forms of help.” He said the Employment Service has set up
job shops in Corus sites as a result of the redundancy announcements.”
