Austin shed 750 tool room jobs

Austin shed 750 tool room jobs
By Clifford Webb
Motoring Correspondent

Austin Rover is closing two plants and making 750 tool room workers redundant because the pace of its new model programme is slowing. A spokesman said last night that in the past five years the number of employees had been halved, from 82000 to 41,000. while the tool room strength was cut by 10 per cent.

"Now that the pressure for new models is easing we are taking action to bring that side of the business into line."

Plants at Castle Bromwich, near Birmingham, employing 580 and at Dunstable, Bedfordshire, with 120 employees, will be closed by March. Fifty jobs will be lost at the Llanelli, Dyfed, body pressing factory, which has a workforce of 1,250. Mr John Allen, Birmingham district secretary of the Amalgamated Union of Engineering Workers, which represents most of those affected, said that the company was letting down one of the most loyal and hard working sections.

"They have co-operated in every way possible to ensure that the new models on which the company's future depends were produced on time, and this is their reward."