Amicus Warns That Jaguar Job Cuts Will Cripple UK Skills Base

LONDON, November 26 -- Manufacturing union Amicus have warned that Jaguar job cuts will devastate the West Midlands economy and the UK's engineering skills base.

Ahead of the march tomorrow to save the Jaguar Browns Lane plant in Coventry, Amicus has said that the 1,150 Jaguar redundancies will have a damaging effect on vital UK manufacturing skilled jobs and the whole economy.

On top of this Amicus say more Ford manufacturing and research and development jobs are threatened if the Jaguar job cuts go ahead. Amicus say the company's research and development site at Whitely and the remaining 400 wood veneering jobs at Browns Lane are almost certainly next in line.

Derek Simpson, General Secretary of Amicus, said:

"Our members at the Jaguar plants at Browns Lane and Castle Bromwich and the people of Coventry will be marching tomorrow to say to Ford and to the UK government that we cannot afford to lose jobs of this calibre.

"Highly skilled and highly paid jobs like those at Jaguar are flooding from the UK manufacturing sector and what's replacing them are low paid, low value 'Mcjobs'. These Jaguar job losses will be devastating, not just for those people and their families who are about to be thrown out of work but for the regional and UK economies and we are convinced that these are just the tip of the iceberg, if these jobs go there will almost certainly be more to follow."

Amicus are urging Ford to reconsider their job cut plans involving the effective closure of the historic Browns Lane plant in Coventry.

Workers at Browns Lane are being balloted for strike action this week. The results are due on 13th December.

The Jaguar Coventry march will start at 10 am tomorrow from Millennium Place, Coventry. The rally will start at 10.30am at Coventry Council Buildings.

Speakers at the rally include Derek Simpson, Amicus General Secretary, Tony Woodley, T&G General Secretary, Brendan Barber, TUC General Secretary and Geoffrey Robinson, MP.

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