The Stage

ATG staff face redundancies in Glasgow

Published Tuesday 23 September 2008 at 15:55 by Lalayn Baluch

Ambassador Theatre Group has issued 27 of its telesales staff at two Glasgow venues with 60-day redundancy notices.

The move follows proposals by the company to relocate box office services from the King’s and Theatre Royal Glasgow to the company’s call centre in London, in a bid to reduce operating costs in “the current economic climate”.

According to a statement by backstage workers union Bectu, the news has been met with anger by theatre staff, who have threatened to take industrial action if compulsory redundancies are made.

Bectu Scottish Officer Paul McManus told The Stage that the union has had an initial consultation with ATG, and has scheduled a series of further discussions in an attempt to overturn the proposals.

He said he was not convinced by ATG’s claim that the relocation would mean a financial saving for the company, and said that the announcement “came out of the blue”.

McManus added: “We are still discussing the proposals and getting information at this stage. It will be more than a couple of weeks before we can say where we are standing in terms of jobs and potential redundancies.”

However, a spokesperson for ATG explained that its London call centre already handles ticketing services for 21 of its venues around the UK, and said that “every effort” would be made to re-employ staff within the company.

He added: “This is a proposal that we have analysed very carefully and will give further consideration to during our consultations. Our company needs to look at ways of reducing operating costs in the current economic climate and an increasing trend towards online ticket purchase.

“We also wish to improve our service to our Glasgow customers, who would benefit from increased access to telephone booking. Our London ticket centre is open for longer hours than is currently the case in Glasgow.”

Meanwhile, Iain Gordon, general manager of Glasgow’s Pavilion Theatre, criticised ATG’s decision, and said that the relocation would take the “heart” out of the venues and deter local people from booking tickets.

He added: “What I am concerned about is that they get funding from Glasgow City Council for both the Theatre Royal and the King’s. It is a considerable amount of Glasgow’s tax payer’s money to go into these facilities, and suddenly they say we are going to take that facility away.”

Glasgow City Council declined to comment.