Action to stop disabled job cuts

This story is from news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6965756.stm

Workers are to hold a month of marches and meetings aimed at keeping open 43 factories which employ disabled staff.
Unions are organising events from Tuesday in England, Scotland and Wales and officials will call at each of the Remploy sites earmarked for closure.

The campaign will start in Aberdeen and end outside the Labour Party annual conference in Bournemouth next month.

Remploy says it wants to put 2,270 of its 5,000 disabled employees into mainstream employment.

A total of 280 non-disabled workers would be affected by the closures.

I would rather we did not have to do this but Remploy and the government leave us no choice

John Quigley, Unite

The GMB, Unite and Community have called for the sites to stay open and have criticised six disability charities who have backed the closures.

John Quigley, Scottish regional secretary of Unite, said: \"This will be a truly historic event and it has to succeed otherwise many disabled people will find themselves out of work and without hope for the future.

\"I would rather we did not have to do this but Remploy and the government leave us no choice.\"

'Great opportunity'

Phil Davies, of the GMB, said unions were determined not to stand by and allow the factories to close.

Remploy, which was set up in the 1940s, said anyone who wished to continue working would be able to do so.

Earlier this year Bob Warner, Remploy's chief executive, told a news conference the company's factories were losing around £100m a year.

Remploy said it had an \"ambitious\" programme to transfer resources from loss-making factories to support more than 20,000 workers in mainstream employment.

'Inclusive environment'

Mr Warner said every factory job cost more than £20,000 a year to support.

\"We have a great opportunity to help more disabled people find jobs,\" he said. \"But we have to change how we work in all areas of Remploy.

\"There is now an acceptance that disabled people would prefer to work in mainstream employment alongside non-disabled people rather than in sheltered workshops from which they do not progress and develop.\"

He said even after the closures it would cost around £9,000 to subsidise each factory job and he could not guarantee there would be no further closures.

Mencap, Mind, Radar, Scope, Leonard Cheshire and the Royal National Institute of Deaf People have said disabled people were more likely to have fulfilling lives by working in an \"inclusive environment\".

The following Remploy factories will close under the plans: Aberdare, Aberdeen, Abertillery, Aintree, Ashington, Bradford, Bridgend, Brixton (London), Halifax, Hartlepool, Hillington (Glasgow), Hull, Leatherhead, Leicester, Lydney (Forest of Dean), Manchester, Mansfield, Medway, Pinxton (Derbyshire), Plymouth, Poole, St Helens, Southend, Spennymoor, Stockton, Treforest, Wigan, Wisbech, Wishaw (Lanarkshire), Worksop, Wrexham and York.

The following factories will merge with another site: Barnsley, Birkenhead, Brynamman, Jarrow, Newcastle-under-Lyme, Pontefract, Redruth, Southampton, Stockport, Woolwich (London) and Ystradgynlais.

A final decision on their fate will be taken later this year

Just to confirm Bridgend we have won it will not be one of those closing, and we are on the brink of getting Swansea to stay open, since we have no jobs in Wales it would be hard to get anyone back to work.