‘Body blow’ for East Anglia 

Unite has described the announcement of 140 job losses at the Stowmarket factory of power and garden tool manufacturer Bosch as a further ‘body blow’ for East Anglia.

Bosch announced today (May 28) that 140 manufacturing jobs would be lost by the end of 2019, with work being relocated to Miskolc, Hungary.

Unite is already in the process of pressing for a reversal of the decision or at least minimising the economic impact of the redundancies.

However, there is already concern that Bosch is not prepared to enter into meaningful consultations but will just go through a ‘box ticking exercise’ over the redundancies.

Suffolk and north Essex is currently suffering a series of major job losses. The Delphi factory is due to close in Sudbury, while last week it was announced that the 2 Sisters Food Group plant in Witham will close. There have also been major job losses announced at another 2 Sisters Food Group site at Flixton (near Bungay in Suffolk) and Le Bronze Alloys (formerly Bolton Aerospace) in Ipswich.

The recent announcements will result in over 1,000 jobs being lost in the region.

“The announcement of job losses at Bosch is another body blow for the region,” said Unite regional officer Neal Evans.

“Unite will be doing everything possible to either reverse the decision to transfer these skilled jobs to Hungary or to minimise redundancies.

“The constant haemorrhaging of jobs in East Anglia is a direct result of government inaction. Workers are being abandoned.

“East Anglia is crying out for an active government manufacturing strategy to ensure that vital skilled jobs do not continue to be lost in the region.”