The restructuring events database contains factsheets with data on large-scale restructuring events reported in the principal national media and company websites in each EU Member State. This database was created in 2002.
UPC, a leading telecommunications provider in Austria, is about to lay-off between 100 and 150 employees at its plants in Vienna and Graz. According to the newspaper Der Standard, UPC has notified their imminent dismissal to 150 employees, as of the end of December 2008. In contrast, UPC management confirmed only about 100 dismissals. Management and the works council have worked out a social plan to mitigate the social consequences of the dismissals for the workers affected. However, the responsible trade union has questioned the fairness of the social plan, since it applies only to employees who are willing to accept the dissolution of the employment relationship in mutual agreement, while not applying to employees affected by unilateral termination of employment. The union supposes that this is to put pressure on the workers concerned to agree amicably to the rescession of employment. UPC is a subsidiary of the Liberty Global Group and operates – apart from the sites in Vienna and Graz – plants in Innsbruck, Wiener Neustadt and Klagenfurt, totalling to 1,200 employees across the country.
Sources
19 December 2008: Kleine Zeitung
18 December 2008: Der Standard
Citation
Eurofound (2008), UPC, Internal restructuring in Austria, factsheet number 67768, European Restructuring Monitor. Dublin, https://dev.eurofound.europa.eu/restructuring-events/detail/67768.