The Communications Workers Union (CWU) has written to management at Covalen, a major provider of content moderation services to Facebook parent Meta, seeking a meeting after the firm told staff on Thursday it is seeking about 400 redundancies.
In a statement, Covalen did not confirm that number but said itcould “confirm that it has commenced consultation with some of its staff in relation to potential redundancies within its Dublin operations”.
“Covalen is engaging with the teams potentially impacted and is providing career planning advice and options for redeployment. All employees in scope have the full support of the Covalen’s employee assistance programme.
“Demand changes in the business can be common and require scaling both up and down,” it said.
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The move follows an announcement by Meta in the US last month that it would shed some roles in the area of content moderation due to technological advances and the greater use of AI systems to carry out the work.
CWU deputy general secretary Ian McArdle described the announcement by Covalen as part of a “ripple effect” arising out of Meta’s move.
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He said staff at the company’s operation in Sandyford were called to an “all hands” meeting on Thursday where they were informed of the potential job losses. He said that while there had been some uncertainty in the wake of the Meta announcement and there is an acceptance that precise job numbers fluctuate at the firm, there was “shock’ at the scale of the potential job losses proposed.
The union says staff were also told at the meeting that compensation for those made redundant would be limited to statutory redundancy, something he described as “wholly unacceptable”.
A lot of the staff at Covalen are international workers, a lot of them working here on visas and quite a few of them have recently renewed those visas at considerable cost. To make this announcement so close to Christmas is a callous act which has caused a huge amount of anxiety among the workforce.”
The 400 job losses would come from a workforce of about 2,000, he suggested.
Covalen is a subsidiary of the larger CPL, a major employer in Ireland. Covalen’s accounts for 2024 show it has a turnover of €722 million and a net profit of €26.2 million.
Many of those likely to be impacted carry out annotation work, looking at and assessing online content.
“These are the gatekeepers for the internet, keeping it safe for the rest of us,” said Mr McArdle, who described it as sometimes challenging work because of the nature of the some of the content under review.
Though not recognised by the company for the purposes of collective bargaining, a group of about 60 of the union’s members, legal operatives, have just voted for industrial action, up to and including strike action in a dispute related to grading.
In relation to the redundancy process, Mr McArdle said he hoped the company would “do the right thing and allow the union’s involvement. Even if they aren’t going to talk to us directly there will be a process involving worker representatives.
“We have members in there an we would like to see those people properly supported and trained.”
He said the union still hoped to play a role in minimising the number of job losses and facilitating redeployment.
