Peugeot workers face 'bleak future' in jobs market

Workers at the UK's Peugeot Citroen factory who will lose their jobs when production ends in the summer of next year faced a “bleak future” in finding other work, a union leader warned today.

Derek Simpson, general secretary of Amicus, repeated his complaint that Government ministers were powerless to resist the decision of multinational companies to pull out of Britain.

Big firms enjoyed “political expediency” when making mass redundancies in the UK, which was disturbing for workers such as those at Ryton in Coventry now facing the jobs axe.

“Peugeot workers are told that the Government’s adherence to a free labour market policy has created a dynamic economy in which they will soon find jobs to replace the well-paid employment they are losing.

“This claim does not stand up to scrutiny.

“A year on from the Rover closure less than half the workforce have got new employment.

“The lucky ones with jobs have been forced to accept pay cuts of up to 40%.

“This is the bleak future that workers at Ryton face,” Mr Simpson wrote in today’s Birmingham Post.

“British working people are tired of being picked off by multinationals and forced to accept low paid and casual employment.

“It should be made as hard and expensive to sack workers in the UK as it is in the rest of Western Europe.

“Perhaps more importantly British politicians need to celebrate Britishness by backing British working people and British industry by introducing a level playing field on employment rights with the EU.”