Cern employees fear jobs big bang

A massive increase in costs has caused a crisis at the facility Keystone

The spiralling costs of a new particle accelerator could cost up to 500 jobs at the European Nuclear Research Centre (Cern) in Geneva, unions fear.

In an unprecedented move this week, some 500 Cern staff belonging to three Swiss and two French trade unions staged a two-hour demonstration outside the facility.

Management issued a statement saying they were looking at various strategies for absorbing the extra SFr880 million needed to complete the construction of Large Hadron Collider, or LHC, and that a definitive plan would be presented in June.

It is hoped the LHC, which is due to become operational in 2007, will help to answer many of the unanswered questions about the origins of the universe and the nature of matter.

Cost-cutting

But a massive increase in costs has caused a crisis at the facility. Cern has already diverted SFr33.5 million to the LHC project through cost-cutting measures and announced a reduction in its scientific activities.

But trade unions say job losses are inevitable. They estimate that some 500 of the 2,500 subcontracted workers at the site will be laid off.

The unions called on the Cern bosses to give a clear picture of the number of jobs they plan to cut and to set aside funds to pay for redundancy packages.

Cern, which has 20 member states, has already announced plans to reduce the number of people it employs directly from its current level of 2,700 to 2,000 over the next three years. It says it can achieve this without having to resort to redundancies.

In a statement, the management said “the success of the LHC will permit [Cern] to remain an important employer in the region, and to continue to call on a large number of subcontractors”.

by Roy Probert