WORKER REACTION:AVIVA EMPLOYEES responded to yesterday's news of major job cuts with a mixture of shock, dismay and anger.
Many staff emerging from Aviva headquarters in Dublin were visibly upset, and there was much criticism of the way in which company management broke the news.
“It’s deplorable the way they’ve handled it,” said one man, who has worked with the company and its predecessors for 33 years.
“They’re beating around the bush and going this way and that way but we’re not getting direct answers.”
Another man with 22 years’ service said staff had been told not to talk to the media. Referring to screens erected in Aviva’s reception area before the announcement, seemingly to block photographers, he said it was a “complete circus”.
“They’ll just go on the way they’ve been going on. Hide everything and have secrecy around everything,” he said.
In Galway, where Aviva employs 220 of its Irish workforce in the building formerly occupied by Hibernian Insurance in Knocknacarra, mother of two, Judith Mbuze, said the company had been a good employer, but she had no idea what the future held for her and her colleagues.
“I’m in shock,” she said. “I’m 10 years in Galway, and the last 7½ were in Aviva, but I could be out of a job in two weeks.”
Colleague Claire O’Donnell was disappointed at the lack of information proffered yesterday by management. “It would be nice if we knew what the situation was,” she said.
The trade union Unite is due to meet staff employed at Knocknacarra this evening about the cuts. Aviva also held a meeting with the 200 staff at the claims processing operation which opened in September 2001 and is based at the Cork Airport Business Park.
One employee there, Clare Clancy, said everyone was still very confused about the situation yesterday afternoon. “All we’ve been told is that there will be a presence in Galway, Cork and Dublin, that’s all we know for now. It’s been a difficult day for everybody.”