Workers to fight GKN plant closure
Workers at GKN in Walsall have vowed to fight the company's decision to close the plant and the hundreds of subsequent redundancies.
Along with colleagues at a second threatened plant, at Hamstead in Great Barr, union officers from the Aldridge factory were holding an emergency meeting with senior officials from Unite in West Bromwich today.
They are putting the final touches to their own set of proposals to save the two plants, and say they expect GKN "to give the plans serious consideration". The engineering firm has said it will shut the Hamstead forge facility by the end of the year followed by the Driveline car parts factory in Aldridge by the middle of 2010, with the loss of 323 jobs.
Work at the plants is being moved to the GKN Driveline factory in Erdington, Birmingham, which is to get £7 million investment over the next three years.
The company is also axing 150 jobs from its Hadley Castle factory in Telford.
Derek Simpson, joint leader of Unite, said today: "The workers have vowed to fight these closures, and Unite will be doing everything in its power to support them.
"We believe there are genuine alternatives to the number of job cuts the company is currently proposing.
"We expect GKN to give the union's plans serious consideration."
Responding to the union moves today, GKN spokesman Paul Dinwiddy said the Walsall and Hamstead closures were a "consequence of the deep global recession" but added that the company would give the union proposals serious consideration.
