Fight to keep job promise

Mar 23 2008 by Eleanor Gregson, Sunday Sun

DESPERATE workers at a factory set to close at the end of this week have been thrown a lifeline by a North MP who hopes to save them from redundancy.

Hartlepool MP Iain Wright is to contact the Government and the boss of Remploy to make sure promises made to staff about providing alternative jobs are kept.

We revealed last week how several employees at Remploy’s Hartlepool site are being forced to take redundancy packages instead of being transferred to Spennymoor in County Durham.

The company — which was set up in the 1940s and specialises in providing employment to disabled people — is closing 28 of its 83 factories at the end of the month.

The closures are part of a modernisation plan that will see half of its 5000-strong UK workforce lose their jobs.

Mr Wright said: “I have been contacted by representatives from the Hartlepool factory and I am very concerned regarding the current situation.

“I understand assurances were given to workers that they would be allowed to transfer and continue their employment with the company, but this promise has not materialised.

“I had been given assurances from Remploy that no worker would be made compulsorily redundant and I expect that to be the case.

“I have therefore today written formally to James Purnell, the Works and Pensions Secretary, and Bob Warner, chief executive of Remploy, to seek clarification that the company will honour the promises they have made.”

Mark Dougherty, 44, and Alan Hornsey, 57, of Hartlepool, are among six workers at the factory who say they would turn down generous redundancy payments if they could transfer to Spennymoor.

Dad-of-four Mark, who is registered as disabled, believes there is sufficient capacity at the Spennymoor factory to accommodate the six workers . . . as they have had several workers leave through voluntary redundancy.

“I really hope that Mr Purnell honours his word and allows us to stay in work . . . that was the promise,” he said.

“They promised us in the beginning that we could continue to work and they haven’t fulfilled that.

“I am due to leave the factory at the end of the week, so time is running out. I don’t want to have to take redundancy . . . I just want to work.”