Important Letter from Disgusted Worker At Quinn Group

In the interest of protecting jobs…the current management strategy doesn’t stand to scrutiny

Quinn cement clinker shed roof collapse: This is the result of professional highly qualified management and their decision to postpone the cleaning of the roof since it would be too costly and an unnecessary spend.

More knowledgeable individuals within the group who were familiar with long standing maintenance schedules and their purpose raised the issue about the clinker shed roof during a health and safety meeting earlier this year.  This job was routine maintenance to clean dense heavy clinker dust build-up on the roof from the overhead conveyor in order to prevent the collapse of the roof.  Management in their wisdom and using their not so many years of experience took it on themselves make a decision that it was not a necessary spend at the time.  It is only by good fortune that no one was injured or even worse, killed as a result of the collapse of the roof.  This clearly demonstrates their complete lack of knowledge in the business they have been assigned to run and they say they are there to protect our jobs.

There is no doubt they are professionals and experts in their own right.  They demonstrate vibrant skills when it comes to “spin” to detract from the problems that exist and paint a picture so remote from the facts that it is nothing short of disturbing.  They even went to Dublin last week (those that don’t bask in it on a near permanent basis) to practice a polished performance for an upcoming meeting today 6^th Sep. with investment representatives and the directors.  Are they afraid of letting the reality slip?  Also arranged was the special refurbishment of the board room in the cement plant not to mention a cleansing of other parts of the plant and people for a tour to paint a rosy picture?  Was this a necessary spend I ask?  Is this to protect the jobs for the boys, some of whom probably don’t even know where half of the business is?  It’s a totally joke.

The business now lacks any focus or direction; there is a complete lack of motivation and accountability at every level and it is spiralling towards an easily predictable failure by anyone who has knowledge in the relevant business sectors.  Downturn in the business sectors no longer cuts it as an excuse when you see competitors growing year on year whilst we accelerate towards failure.  To help motivate us even more, our canteen has now also been closed with the equipment removed in the darkness of night.  Were they afraid we would stop them removing it?  Does this portray a long term vision for our company which we have worked for so many years or is this pre-empting a cull of staff?

Management will also demonise the locals blaming them for everything and treating them with total contempt to strengthen their own protected positions where they can say what they wish to, without any comeback using PR gurus to deliver their message in the most clinical manor.  A means should I say not afforded by locals.  The locals are great scapegoats to cover up for management failings of what was once a good company to work for.  Now we see a continuous blame game.  Production in the cement plant has now stopped as a result of the fiasco above which was totally and easily preventable and a significant and costly repair job is now under way.  A cost by the way, that is multiple factors greater than that of the clean-up job originally scheduled.  Is this a result of locals, or the downturn in the construction industry or simply bad management?

This is just one of many instances of downright incompetence and we are told it’s all in the best interest of jobs.  I would ask whose jobs?  All that is left now is for the business to fail due to strategically orchestrated self-sabotage when the money has run dry whilst blame will be placed on the locals by those who have failed it.  It wouldn’t be the first suspected self-sabotage act.  Someone should ask who was to gain the most from the sabotage of the canteen and its timing for instance.  Given that the place was crawling with security at this time, who was best positioned to carry out the “attack”?  It is difficult to see how locals could have carried this out.  The locals and downturn are just easy excuses for blame and provide a great means for management to cover their own shortcomings.

Yours,
Disgusted employee