Despite winning a £6.1 billion flight engine deal, Rolls-Royce is going ahead with its plan to terminate 3,000 jobs…writes Kaliph Anaz for Asian Lite, UK’s No 1 newspaper for British Asians
Prime Minister David Cameron is facing a dilemma as one of the prestigious British Company begins the process to terminate 3000 skilled jobs across the UK. The prime minister is aiming to make the country as a hub for highly skilled work force.
Despite winning a £6.1 billion flight engine deal from Dubai-based Emirates, Rolls-Royce is going ahead with its plan to terminate 3,000 jobs. The opposition Labour party is trying to save the jobs. The company is opening a new engineering factory in India with 500 low paid jobs.
“This is part of a pattern which has seen the reduction of UK jobs with more opportunities being created in ‘low labour cost’ countries,” Theresa Griffin, Labour MEP for the North West of England, said.
Speaking from the European Parliament in Brussels, the MEP has called on the Commission to act to protect jobs in Rolls-Royce in the UK.
Following the announcement by Rolls-Royce of 3,000 job losses across the UK, Labour MEPs met with representatives of workers, union representatives and the European Commission to call for urgent European action to tackle this crisis.
Theresa Griffin said: “In the North West Rolls-Royce employ 1,500 people, in addition to this they also sub-contract to other companies who now face an uncertain future.
“These cuts are a huge loss of skills to the UK economy and will result in Rolls-Royce outsourcing high-tech manufacturing jobs overseas to plug the skills gap in the future.
“I was shocked to learn that the recently announced £6.1bn deal between Rolls-Royce and Emirates will not generate UK jobs. In fact, it will not even prevent further job losses.
“Since 1997, Rolls-Royce has received £680m from the UK Government as well as additional EU funding. I would expect their priority to be protecting jobs in the UK.
“I will continue to work with Rolls-Royce employees and Unite the Union to fight to keep jobs here in the UK. We have called for action at an EU level and my Labour colleagues and I will continue to do everything we can to keep jobs here in the North West.”
Tony Tinley, Unite’s Regional Officer added: “This has been a very useful meeting and I’d like to thank the MEPs for their time. I am pleased to find that Glenis and her colleagues share our concerns regarding Rolls-Royce’s current industrial strategy and understand the concerning impact that this has on the UK economy and job market.
“We have agreed to meet again to see what support Europe can provide to our members and I look forward to working together to protect UK jobs.”
About 24,000 out of Rolls-Royce’s global workforce of 55,000 are based in the UK and the proposed job losses come mostly from the firm’s aerospace division. Rolls-Royce UK staff are employed at four locations in the East Midlands, as well as 1,500 at five sites in the North West and 2,400 employees at six locations across Scotland.
The proposed job losses include some at their factory in Barnoldswick, Lancashire. The job losses will also mean a reduction in its number of on-site contractors which include staff at Burnley-based Aircelle. In November 2014, Rolls-Royce announced 2,600 job losses with another 400 losses announced in March this year. Most of these will be in the UK and include high quality and highly-skilled jobs. We simply cannot lose the number of jobs that Rolls-Royce are proposing; the effects would be devastating for the region.