Seat belt plant lays off 300 workers

Nearly 300 workers at an east Belfast seat belt manufacturing plant were today made redundant.

Shocked staff at the European Component Corporation factory in Dundonald were told of the job cuts just before they finished for the weekend.

Bosses have blamed the downturn in the car industry for the decision to lay off a third of their workforce.

The company refused to make any official comment, but one stunned labourer said: “We were expecting to be hit, but not as bad as this.

“This will have a devastating effect on the local economy because the majority of the workers would be from the east Belfast catchment area.”

Union officials are now set to hold talks with management on Monday to agree on who should be laid off.

The plant is one of the biggest employers in east Belfast, with more than 800 currently making components.

But it is understood 296 jobs will go between March and August.

Out of these 140 will be agency employees with the rest being made up of full-time staff and maintenance workers.

The announcement came as the last vessel expected to be built at troubled east Belfast shipyard, the Anvil Point ferry, was officially named.

Independent councillor for Castlereagh, Frankie Gallagher, urged the Government to step in.

He claimed: “East Belfast is turning into an industrial wasteland.

“The Government needs to intervene because the people of east Belfast do not deserve poverty and loss of jobs as part of the peace dividend.

“What we need is employment, proper education and some sort of strategy to give people here a future.”