{"id":15011,"date":"2018-04-18T15:21:00","date_gmt":"2018-04-18T14:21:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=15011"},"modified":"2020-11-12T12:58:48","modified_gmt":"2020-11-12T12:58:48","slug":"de-la-rue-declines-appeal-british-passport-contract","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=15011","title":{"rendered":"‘Bitter blow’"},"content":{"rendered":"
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UK printing firm De La Rue announced today (April 18) that it would not appeal the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision to hand the contract for making the new blue British passports to a supplier in France.<\/p>\n

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The announcement comes only two weeks after De La Rue pledged<\/a> it would fight the government decision that could see\u00c2\u00a0200 or more jobs at risk.<\/p>\n

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Unite national officer Louisa Bull said the news will \u00e2\u20ac\u015bcome as a bitter blow to De La Rue workers who now face an uncertain future.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bWorkers will feel let down that the company is not prepared to fight the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision to ship the production of the new blue passports overseas,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said.<\/p>\n

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Unite strongly opposed\u00c2\u00a0French-Dutch firm Gemalto winning\u00c2\u00a0the contract on grounds of national security and protecting communities and jobs.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The union highlighted the fact that in France, passports can only be produced domestically.<\/p>\n

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MPs from across the political spectrum likewise opposed the move \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and dozens of Labour MPs showed solidarity with De La Rue workers<\/a> at a Unite-organised \u00e2\u20ac\u0098photo-booth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 demo outside Parliament last month. Trade union representatives from De La Rue travelled from Gateshead to join the MPs and brief them on the impact the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision will have on jobs and the local economy.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

When it was first revealed that Gemalto would be the preferred bidder, the government highlighted \u00c2\u0141120m cost savings to the taxpayer over length of the 11-year contract. But Unite and others highlighted that these savings were a false economy in light of the impact\u00c2\u00a0on jobs and the communities in the North East that rely on them.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s more, De La Rue has maintained a reputation for producing high quality UK passports for the last decade \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a point MPs highlighted when an urgent question was raised<\/a> over the issue in March.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

De La Rue itself expressed concerns that the Gemalto bid was far too low to produce passports to a good standard.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bFor the last decade De La Rue has produced the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s passports securely without any problems and provided a source of decent well paid jobs in the North East,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Bull said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Job assurances<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bTheresa May and her government is now putting all that at risk with little thought of the consequences or the shockwaves that it will send through the community and local economy,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she added.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt would not happen in France where they produce their own passports on grounds of national security and it should not happen here in UK.”<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite will be working closely with De La Rue to seek assurances on jobs as well as supporting workers through these uncertain times.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

De La Rue said today that it would not appeal the government decision after seeking legal advice but Bull argued that the situation \u00e2\u20ac\u015bneed not be like this\u00e2\u20ac\u0165.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bUnite and our members are mobilised and prepared to fight the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision which represents a dark day for UK manufacturing,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 she said.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u015bTheresa May needs to wake up to the anger her government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s short sighted job destroying decision has generated and intervene to back UK passport workers by ensuring Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s blue passports are made in the UK.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UK printing firm De La Rue announced today (April 18) that it would not appeal the government\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision to hand the contract for making the new blue British passports to a supplier in France.   The announcement comes only two weeks after De La Rue pledged it would fight the government decision that could see\u00c2\u00a0200 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14856,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[486,900,913],"wps_subtitle":"De La Rue declines to appeal govt decision on British passport contract","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15011"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15011"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15011\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26263,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15011\/revisions\/26263"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/14856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}