The hard drive manufacturer Seagate has announced a global restructuring plan and told staff 100 jobs will be cut.
The company is now seeking voluntary redundancies from its workforce of 1,600 and has implemented wage cuts.
Seagate, a major private sector employer in the city, has been operating in Derry for many years.
While the company had not previously provided specific numbers, it confirmed the ongoing global restructuring plan.
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Recently, Seagate was fined $300 million for breaching trading regulations related to the Chinese market.
Export control rules enforced by the US government now prevent Seagate from supplying a significant market without risking further action by US authorities.
The fine was imposed due to the sale of over $1.1 billion worth of disks to Huawei, a company blacklisted by the US in 2019.
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Unite General Secretary Sharon Graham told Businesslive: “There’s no real justification for redundancies or attacks on workers’ pay. It seems that while workers must pay the price of short-term production problems there are no issues with paying out large dividends to shareholders. Yet again workers are being asked to pay the price.”
She said: “The best way to defend themselves against threats to jobs and pay is for workers who are not already members to join a union and support our application for collective negotiation rights and recognition at the site.”
Unite Regional Officer Brenda Stevenson emphasized Seagate’s importance to the northwest economy and expressed disappointment in the company’s decision, contrasting it with recent statements by the US special envoy to Northern Ireland, Joe Kennedy. Stevenson deemed the job losses unacceptable.
