EDS cuts staff in Australia

19.09.2005
Multinational outsourcer EDS has retrenched 106 applications development staff from its Australian operation, however the company is vehemently denying the redundancies are payback for failed wage negotiations late last month.

The company revealed to staff last Friday that 66 positions in Sydney, 34 in Melbourne, four in Adelaide and one in Brisbane will be axed - an unusual juxtaposition given that it is having some difficulty filling full-time positions on major projects in Canberra.

Saying the "positions are to be separated from the company," an EDS spokesperson said the sackings are "absolutely not" comeuppance for a union-backed employee vote which threw out a company proposed deal called the People Agreement which froze wages in exchange for boosting some conditions.

"This has nothing to do with the People Agreement. It's completely separated. These actions are a normal course of our business," the EDS spokesperson said, adding the retrenchments were required because of a fall-off in business in Australia.

Part of EDS' now open public acrimony with its employee is based on what it regards as an unwanted intrusion by employee advocate groups such as the Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers Australia (APESMA), getting involved in enterprise bargaining negotiations.

Discounting APESMA's influence over its Australian workforce, the EDS spokesperson claimed numbers attending union meetings over the People Agreement had been inflated. She said the negotiations had been a learning opportunity for the company, with one tangible output being a greater transparency in communications between management and the workforce - as exhibited by the company coming clean about the lay-offs.