Time for rhetoric is over

The government’s new ‘industrial strategy’ needs to kick-in immediately, as 221 jobs at the Yeovil GKN plant, which makes airframes for helicopters, are set to be made redundant.

Unite today (Wednesday October 19) said that prime minister Theresa May’s much-trumpeted industrial strategy needs ‘flesh put on the bones double quick’, otherwise thousands of skilled manufacturing jobs across the UK, similar to those at Yeovil, could be at risk.

A total of 221 redundancy notices were issued at the Somerset plant on Monday (October 17), which Unite said, effectively, meant the closure of the site. The first job losses could start as early as 1 December.

“This is terrible and heart-breaking news for the workers and their families, and the ripple effects for the wider West Country economy will be painful in the extreme,” said Heathcliffe Pettifer, Unite regional officer.

The GKN workers make airframes for Italian-owned Leonardo Helicopters – formerly AgustaWestland which is on the same site – and speculation continues that Leonardo wants to take the work back ‘in house’.

“Unite will strongly defend our members’ jobs. We immediately started a campaign to lobby GKN and Leonardo Helicopters, whose apparent decision to bring airframe work back ‘in house’, has led to the real possibility of the site’s closure,” said Pettifer.

“We want this decision reversed – there has not been an adequate rationale from senior GKN management for the redundancies,” he added.

Unite has already written to GKN Aerostructures (Europe and Asia) CEO John Pritchard asking him to explain the reasoning for the redundancies.

“The threat to these 221 highly skilled jobs makes the need for a robust, coherent and sustainable long-term industrial strategy to protect the UK’s manufacturing base an urgent priority for the government,” said Pettifer.

In the summer, Leonardo lost out to Boeing in its bid to gain the majority of the work for the latest generation of Apache attack helicopters for the British army.

“Greg Clark, secretary of state for business, energy and industrial strategy needs flesh put on the bones of such a strategy double quick, otherwise many thousands of other skilled jobs could be at risk,” said Pettifer.

“The time for rhetoric is over – now is the time for positive action,” he added.