Support the car industry campaign
Motor manufacturing
matters
Unite is calling on the government to support
UK manufacturing and the UK car sector. The case for helping
Britain's car industry is straight-forward. It is
by-and-large profitable with strong product. Instead the industry
is on the ropes because of market collapse, particularly for the
sort of high-value vehicles produced by Jaguar and Land Rover, but
that demand will recover when the world economy starts to move
forward once more. And when it does, Britain needs to have its
iconic brands in place to respond. That means keeping factories
open and our skilled workforce in employment. Anything else means
that the demand will be met from other countries and at least
70,000 manufacturing jobs will be gone for good. Find out more
about why the car industry counts.
Latest news
19 February 2009
Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Unite, has written to
the chairman of BMW's board of management to protest in the
strongest possible terms the union's 'outrage' at the manner in
which 330 BMW agency workers were summarily sacked earlier this
week.
16 February 2009
In response to the sacking of 850 agency workers with almost no
notice by BMW, Derek Simpson, joint general secretary of Unite, has
called on the government to act now to protect agency workers
16 February 2009
Tony Woodley, Unite joint general secretary, said: "The manner
in which these cuts were announced today was disgraceful."
5 February 2009
On a visit to BMW in Oxford today (5th February), to meet
workers at the plant, Derek Simpson, joint leader of Unite, will
call on the government to introduce an "old banger bonus" scheme,
similar to the successful German scheme as part of a
comprehensive package to support the UK car industry.
5 February 2009
Moves by Ford to cut around 850 jobs across its UK plants, and
freeze a negotiated pay deal, have today (Thursday) been denounced
as a 'betrayal' of a loyal workforce by the workers' union Unite,
which is warning the car giant that cutting workers' pay to meet
redundancy payments could lead to industrial action.
27 January 2009
It used to be said in the 60s and 70s that if Ford sneezed the
economy caught a cold. The car industry is just as important an
indicator of the health of the economy now as it was then.
19 January 2009
Unite on the news that Jaguar Land Rover is to extend the
stoppage in production at Castle Bromwich plant by a further two
weeks.
16 January 2009
The announcement today that Honda will halt production at its
Swindon plant for the months of April and May this year has been
met with dismay by Unite, the UK's biggest union.
13 January 2009
Derek Simpson, joint leader of Unite, will meet Jaguar Land
Rover workers at the car manufacturer's Castle Bromwich and
Solihull plants today (January 13th), where he will tell the
workers that Unite will be doing everything in its power to support
manufacturing workers during the financial downturn.
09 January 2009
Derek Simpson, joint leader of Unite, is calling on the leaders
attending the government's jobs summit this coming Monday (13
January), to leave laissez-faire policies at the door and begin a
new era of co-operation between government, business and unions,
which focuses on strategic intervention to support jobs and the
economy.
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