“Reports are that electronics manufacturer, Tyco Sensormatic, which employs 250 people at its plant in Bishopstown, has been examining its operations globally for some time now and that plans may be afoot to relocate the Cork facility to a new plant in Mexico as soon as it has been built.
“It is widely believed that the company plans to close a facility in Puerto Rico in the near future and to move operations from there to the plant in Cork. However, there are growing fears among the staff at Bishopstown that this will be a short-term shift which will last only until the new facility in Mexico has been completed, at which point the majority of Cork jobs will be transferred to Central America.
“In the current economic climate it is grossly unfair to keep staff in the dark about intentions the company may or may not have to move its Cork operation further a field. Cork has been awash with job losses lately with the announcement of 180 jobs to go at Pfizer in Little Island coming only this day last week.
“The national unemployment rate has soared to almost 6% and Cork has been seriously badly hit with the number of people on the Live Register increasing by 4,292 between March 2007 and March 2008, a jump of 28.8%.
“It is only natural that people are fearful for their futures and the fact that the company is not forthrightly stating the company’s intentions is leaving the floodgates open to speculation and hearsay. I am urging Tyco Sensormatic to come clean and to allay the fears of its workforce, putting unconfirmed reports to bed, by disclosing relevant plans it has in the pipeline for the Cork plant.”