Being in the EU saved my job

With just days left before the UK makes a historic decision on June 23 – whether to leave the European Union or remain – UNITElive this week speaks to members about what being part of the EU has meant to them.

Within a few years of Stuart Davis joining Bentley as a 15-year-old apprentice in 1986, the iconic car manufacturer was beginning to struggle. Bentley’s British owned parent company, Vickers, was paying the price of relying on one model and neglecting investment.

By 1998 Vickers was forced to sell the company to German car giant Volkswagen for around £250m. VW proceeded to invest the same amount again into Bentley; securing it’s future as a brand that represents the best of British manufacturing, saving Davis’ and hundreds of other people’s jobs and giving the company a major foothold in the European market.

Being plugged into the EU’s structures saved Bentley and made it “a bigger player in the UK automotive industry than we’d ever dreamed of,” says Unite rep and car technician Davis. The irony for Bentley, as one of the UK’s standout products, is that leaving the EU could spell disaster for it’s British workers: No man is an island and neither is a car.

“It’s ironic: VW use Bentley’s status as a luxury British company to sell the car, but they have built some models in Dresden in Germany. All of it can be done elsewhere. VW have plants in virtually every European country and the technology is pretty much the same in all the plants,” Davis explained.

Livelihoods at risk

VW own a stable of car brands, including Audi, Skoda and SEAT, with many of the parts universal across makes and all of the products compliant with the specifications of the single market – which comprises of 500m people.

If Britain leaves the EU, making Bentley’s UK plant less attractive and more awkward to work with than its sister sites in Europe, due to the possibility of trade tariffs and reduced political lobbying power, then livelihoods will be at risk, said Davis.

“This year we launched a new SUV, but before we secured it we had to go into a beauty contest with a plant in Bratislava who build all the VW group SUVs. They wanted to build the Bentley SUV as well and it took a lot of persuasion and concessions on the workforce to get it built here,” he said.

“Probably in the next three years we’ll have new model cars coming out and we’ll have other places bidding on them. If we’re out of Europe and there’s tariffs because we’re not in the single market, I honestly think we could lose a build of 10,000 cars to somewhere else.”

Davis is not alone in voicing his concerns. Today, the car industry trade body, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders’ (SMMT) and the directors of Britain’s major car manufacturers also warned that Brexit would threaten jobs and increase costs.

But the issue is more personal for Davis and his family, who have been given a comfortable and reliable livelihood from car manufacturing, especially in their hometown of Stoke – where other options are light on the ground.

“In Stoke 20, 30 years ago we had steelworks, mines and other industries, but over that time it’s all declined. There’s a few pot banks left, but not many. When those industries go, all those people and all those skills go with them. Leaving the EU risks doing that to the car industry,” said Davis.

“I’ve done 30 years at Bentley and another 15 years will see me close to retirement, but you want your children to have decent jobs. Car manufacturing is a skilled and well paid occupation and it’s a good sector to work in – we don’t want to harm it, and the other British industries that are more effective being part of the EU, by leaving.

“That’s why people need to vote in.”