Indymedia YorkYork Remploy workers to ballot for strike action
The York Remploy factory is one of 43 that have been listed for closure in is being calling an 'act of industrial sabotage'. Workers in all 83 factories are being balloted for strike action.
Responding to today's announcement of 43 Remploy factory closures Phil Davies, Secretary of the trade union consortium said, "This is an act of industrial sabotage which the government and the reemploy board of directors are trying to impose on disabled people and their families.
The 43 factory closures are in areas of high unemployment. We believe that the whole of the trade union movement will support our fight to secure these jobs and these factories.
The trade unions will now seek authority for a national official strike ballot in all 83 Remploy sites. The company and the government have taken no account of the advice given to them over the past 12 months.
Jenny Formby, Unite T&G section, Chair of the Remploy Trade Union Consortium said, "The sheer scale of the closures and its impact on disabled workers is both shocking and unprecedented. The grotesque spectacle of six organisation, purporting to represent disabled people, supporting these job loses is outrageous and equally shocking. It will not pass unchallenged. The trade unions are not arguing to maintain the status quo. The trade unions' alternative business plan, costed to remain within the £555M cash envelope, not only maintains the factory network in manufacturing but expands and develops the role of all factories to become a resource for the whole disabled community."
York GMB officer: Steve Morris 07958 156843
Full list of factories and contact officers at http://www.gmb.org.uk/Templates/PressItems.asp?NodeID=95496
The GMB Remploy Members Website can be found at http://www.gmbremploy.unionweb.co.uk/
Comments
Hugh in saying something right shocker
The dispute rumbles on, the GMB are trying. Hugh Bayley actually said something worthwhile - last one I spotted was in a Westminster Hall debate as well.
From http://www.theyworkforyou.com/whall/?id=2007-07-25a.275.1&m=1953#g290.0
Remploy's York factory employs 52 people. I have visited it many times. As my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton, North (Frank Cook) and my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Medway (Mr. Marshall-Andrews) said, Remploy is a family. People get more than just employment; they get companionship, friendship and social support.
I was very disappointed to learn in May that my local factory was scheduled for closure. Earlier, I had been told that the company might reduce the volume of manufacturing in York but replace it with other measures to find work for disabled people, and I support the new measures that Remploy proposes to take to get larger numbers of disabled people into mainstream employment. However, I do think that the Remploy management have misunderstood and underestimated the difficulties that existing employees will face in making the move. Many of them have worked in the factory for a long time. Some could possibly make do in mainstream employment, but they would lose the support and companionship that they have had for many years from their work colleagues in Remploy factories. If any of them do move into other employment, it is extremely important that they are not separated into ones and twos, but that contracts are negotiated with local employers to take five or six people, so that they go out together.
It is absolutely essential in a place such as York that manufacturing of some kind continues, because some people will be unable to move into mainstream employment and, although the company has offered a very generous package to maintain for life the salary that they currently receive, if people do not have a job to go for, they do not have a meaningful life ahead of them.
Last August, when it was clear that some change was in the wind in Remploy, I asked for Remploy to meet City of York council and to examine the possibility of finding alternative premises for a manufacturing base for disabled people in York. I still urge them to do that. City of York council has its own factory for disabled people in York. Why does not Remploy go into partnership with it, buy a 50 per cent. stake and provide opportunities to work in a similar environment for Remploy workers who cannot move into mainstream employment?
I am very grateful to you, Mrs. Anderson, for giving me a few minutes in which to speak before the winding-up speeches at the end of the debate. I have no time to say more, but I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to consider what will happen to those for whom mainstream employment is not a realistic option.