Obelisk confident of bright future despite job cuts

Obelisk, the award winning Cavan based international telecommunications and energy services provider told The Anglo Celt this week that they are looking forward to the future with confidence. The company which employs 300 people directly and indirectly have confirmed that they are in discussions with staff regarding options of voluntary and involuntary redundancy "for about 15 staff". A spokesman for Obelisk explained that this situation was reached mainly as a result of the company reaching the end of some contract work. "We will receive staff suggestions on improving competitiveness this week as part of this exercise and we will then decide how to proceed", he said. "We match our skills to the particular needs of clients and continually try to up-skill and make our service more valuable to customers", he explained. The nature of much of their work was based on particular contracts and they regularly recruited staff on contract to service those requirements. However, the Communications Workers Union who have members employed by Obelisk have challenged the company to engage in constructive negotiations with them on the issue of the redundancies. They claim that the attitude of the company is "excessive, unfair and lacking in transparency". From the strategic point of view Obelisk say that they have plans to significantly expand the export side of the business, an area which represents exciting growth opportunities given their proven track record. "During 2011 alone Obelisk recruited over 70 staff and our pipeline of work in Ireland and UK is expanding. We foresee that 2012 will be our best year ever", he claimed. Union not happy On the other side of the equation the Communications Workers Union has called on management at Obelisk to engage with it in constructive discussions on behalf of staff following the company's announcement "that it intends to shed 20 jobs". The union claims that staff attended meetings with management where they were advised that all employees would have to re-apply for their jobs. CWU's Head of Organising, Ian McArdle, described the approach by the company as 'excessive, unfair and lacking in transparency'. "In asking all staff to re-apply for their jobs, Obelisk simply ensured that everyone must endure a longer period of stress and uncertainty in circumstances where there is no clear business plan behind the call for redundancies", said Mr. McArdle. According to the CW union representative the company had not advised which skills needed to be retained in order to make Obelisk's long-term future certain. This only added to the confusion, he said. "Adding to the confusion is the fact that Obelisk has said that it will continue to use subcontractors while making its own staff redundant. We are very concerned for our members' livelihoods particularly their ability to get a new job in a border region already struggling with high unemployment", said Mr. McArdle. "Staff deserve better and after many years of loyal service, they expect better. We want to see their employer engage with their union to work through these grave challenges in a constructive manner", he added. The Communications Workers representative called on Obelisk to immediately engage with workers and their representatives to explore all avenues to protect jobs at the Group and in the region. Obelisk route to success A company spokesman explained to the Anglo Celt that Obelisk is a leading provider of infrastructure solutions to the telecommunications and energy sectors in Ireland and internationally. "We have a strong reputation for providing high quality service and most recently won the award for best specialist contractor in Ireland in 2010 at the National Irish Safety Organisation awards", he stated. "We meet staff regularly to communicate the prospects for the company and have had five separate sessions with staff in our Dublin and Cavan offices in the past few days", he said. "Obelisk continues to expand our services and skills to meet the growing demands of our customers, mainly multinationals like Vodafone, o2, Meteor, Ericsson, and Hauwei. This approach has worked well for us and in June we were awarded one of the largest mobile telecommunications contracts in Ireland, worth over €50m, over the next five years", revealed the Obelisk spokesman.