{"id":9051,"date":"2016-06-20T13:42:58","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T12:42:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/unitelive.org\/?p=9051"},"modified":"2016-06-20T18:40:55","modified_gmt":"2016-06-20T17:40:55","slug":"being-in-the-eu-saved-my-job","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/?p=9051","title":{"rendered":"Being in the EU saved my job"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With just days left before the UK makes a historic decision on June 23 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c whether to leave the European Union or remain \u00e2\u20ac\u201c UNITElive this week speaks to members about what being part of the EU has meant to them. <\/em><\/p>\n

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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\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s British owned parent company, Vickers, was paying the price of relying on one model and neglecting investment.<\/p>\n

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By 1998 Vickers was forced to sell the company to German car giant Volkswagen for around \u00c2\u0141250m. VW proceeded to invest the same amount again into Bentley; securing it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s future as a brand that represents the best of British manufacturing, saving Davis\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and hundreds of other people\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s jobs and giving the company a major foothold in the European market.<\/p>\n

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Being plugged into the EU\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s structures saved Bentley and made it \u00e2\u20ac\u015ba bigger player in the UK automotive industry than we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d ever dreamed of,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 says Unite rep and car technician Davis. The irony for Bentley, as one of the UK\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s standout products, is that leaving the EU could spell disaster for it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s British workers: No man is an island and neither is a car.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIt\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ironic: VW use Bentley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 Davis explained.<\/p>\n

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Livelihoods at risk<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c which comprises of 500m people.<\/p>\n

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If Britain leaves the EU, making Bentley\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThis 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,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 he said.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bProbably in the next three years we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have new model cars coming out and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll have other places bidding on them. If we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re out of Europe and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tariffs because we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not in the single market, I honestly think we could lose a build of 10,000 cars to somewhere else.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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Davis is not alone in voicing his concerns. Today, the car industry trade body, the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 (SMMT) and the directors of Britain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s major car manufacturers also warned<\/a> that Brexit would threaten jobs and increase costs.<\/p>\n

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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.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bIn Stoke 20, 30 years ago we had steelworks, mines and other industries, but over that time it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all declined. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 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,\u00e2\u20ac\u0165 said Davis.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bI\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve 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 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c we don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to harm it, and the other British industries that are more effective being part of the EU, by leaving.<\/p>\n

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\u00e2\u20ac\u015bThat\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s why people need to vote in.\u00e2\u20ac\u0165<\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With just days left before the UK makes a historic decision on June 23 \u00e2\u20ac\u201c whether to leave the European Union or remain \u00e2\u20ac\u201c 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8381,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[486,386,465],"wps_subtitle":"Bentley car technician Stuart explains why he's voting to Remain","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9051"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9051"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9058,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9051\/revisions\/9058"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/unitelive.test.igniteamt.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}