Hello there. Hope you're feeling well today.
Today there has been shock in Wales as Virgin Media announced plans to close it's Swansea Call Centre next year. Which will mean that eight hundred people will be out of work with an employer that I suspect they assumed they would be with for the rest of their lives. That they could raise families, buy houses with mortgaeges, go out on holidays etc. In other words a reasonable standard of living. Within a day those people's ambitions were thown away in probably the most cruellest of ways.
The Welsh Labour Government's reaction was unsurprising. It was going to set up a taskforce to try and find the people affected new jobs. Nothing against that of course. Except what was also crystal clear from their reaction was that they were completely unaware of the announcement. Hence echoes of when Tata Steel originally proposed to close down the Port Talbot Steel works two years ago. Or when Tesco actually closed their call centre in Cardiff earlier this.
Yet again Welsh Labour have been asleep on the job. Bet Carwyn Jones won't reminisce on this being "an achievement" of his time as First Minister.
Swansea council stated that the lack of rail electrification west of Cardiff would have been a factor in the decision. Something Secretary Of State, Political slimeball and blog villain Alun Cairns denied. Well whilst it probably wasn't a final dealbreaker the fact that the stabilisers have to be put on the trains past Cardiff doesn't help now does it? And after all he won't care. His constituency is in the Vale Of Glamorgan.
On the BBC today it was suggested that some of the staff could get similar call centre jobs with other firms. Let's hope so. But there may be issues of cost and exactly where these opportunities will be in terms of distance. So things will not be easy.
What Virgin Media's behaviour has revealed yet again is that for the most part Wales is considered the easy option for big companies, often happy to take Welsh government money when setting up something here, to close down when no longer needed. Yet again Wales suffers for no apparent reason. If you think about it. Apart from the Port Talbot Steelworks when has there been a time when there has been a fight over a proposed closure in recent years? After all, as I continue to say, the Welsh people taken as whole are too nice for their own good.
So perhaps there should be a quiet revolt by the Welsh people against Virgin Media? Perhaps what they should do is not get their services? Perhaps if they have already a contract with them is not to renew it?
There are other internet companies out there. Other providers of TV services. Other providers of telephone and mobile services. There is also the likes of Netflix and Amazon. So you see Virgin Media would not be missed.
Would some people lose their jobs? Well I suspect following from what has happened today the Virgin Shop in the city centre in Swansea will not be with us for much longer. As for the tech people. Again I suspect a lot of them are agency staff anyway. They'd do BT work the day after for instance.
So you see Virgin Media are vunerable to a Welsh boycott. They may seem like a big company. But even Goliath fell.
Until the next time.
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