A COACHLOAD of CWU delegates descended on an insurance firm yesterday to demand they meet with workers threatened with the sack 500 miles away.

Ageas plans to close a call centre in Belfast with the loss of 200 jobs, after a state subsidy in the form of a grant from Invest Northern Ireland dried up.

But the company increased its profits last year to over £97 million — including a hefty profit at the Belfast site, according to workers there.

Ageas has also refused to deal with workers collectively through the union, instead approaching staff for one-on-one meetings.

When demonstrators arrived at the firm’s head office on the outskirts of Bournemouth, they were met by two Ageas managers including “head of continuous improvement” James Collins.

CWU Northern Ireland secretary Lawrence Huston demanded that the retail managing director come out to meet workers. After Mr Collins said the boss was not present, Mr Huston repeated the workers’ request for him to fly out to Ireland to meet staff.

When asked by the Star to comment on Ageas’s profit margins, Mr Collins said: “I’m not going to answer any more questions. I’m quite comfortable with the way this has been dealt with.”

After the confrontation, union rep Brendan O’Reilly, who works at the Belfast call centre, said Mr Collins had offered “words without any meaning.”

“These events have brought home that our jobs are not secure,” he said. “I’ve been there seven years and now I’m told there’s no recourse.

“It just brings out the precariousness of our situation when the site is still profitable.”