Loss of 500 Telford RBS jobs a tragedy, say unions

THE CLOSURE of a call centre in Telford, with the loss of 500 jobs, will be a "human tragedy" for the area, unions have warned.

The part-nationalised Royal Bank of Scotland is to close its credit management services call centre in Ironmaster Way as part of a plan to halve its administration, at a cost of 3,500 jobs.

Telford's site will close as part of that, although some of the jobs are expected to be relocated into Birmingham.

A further 150 positions are to go from another site in Plymouth and 40 more in Leeds.

Dave Fleming, Unite national officer, said: "These job losses and site closures by RBS are truly devastating for local communities, many of which depend on these finance jobs.

"When RBS announced 3,500 job cuts in September 2010 there was utter disbelief at the scale of the cuts.

"Today we are seeing the human tragedy resulting from this decision. Behind each and every job loss there is a family tragedy and the consequences are often devastating.

"Unite is calling on the bank to do more to offer re-training and redeployment to the workforce, who will be distraught by this news."

RBS said in a statement: "We announced last September that we would be reducing the number of centres we operate from, and that regrettably this would lead to job losses.

"We identified the sites that would close over the next two years and committed to giving our employees 12 months' notice of the closures taking place. We will do all we can to support our employees, offer redeployment opportunities wherever possible and keep compulsory redundancies to an absolute minimum.

"Having to cut jobs is the most difficult part of our work to rebuild RBS and repay taxpayers for their support."

The office will close by 2012, although the 12-month notice period given to staff began at the time of the initial announcement last September.

Telford MP David Wright has previously described the move as "shocking" and "a real kick in the teeth".

By Business Editor Thom Kennedy