Unions fight for Remploy’s future

By Sunil Peck with Labour in Manchester

Workers say they fear for the future of Remploy’s remaining factories, despite a defiant stance taken by their unions.

Last November, the government accepted a Remploy plan to close 17 of its factories and merge another 11. The 28 factories have now closed, as has another factory where all the staff had accepted voluntary redundancy.

But addressing a raucous fringe meeting at the Labour conference, Phil Davies, GMB national secretary for Remploy, and a leading figure in the Remploy Trades Union Consortium, said the company – which will receive an annual government grant of  £111million a year until 2012 - had a bright future.

He said £100 million had been wasted on redundancy payments for 2,500 disabled and 500 non-disabled Remploy staff,  instead of modernising the company.

And he criticised managers for losing existing contracts and failing to win new ones.

But he vowed to fight tooth and nail to safeguard Remploy’s future.

He said: “We have the opportunity to make this company the best in manufacturing. We are going to have to do the work inside the factories and make it a greener company.”

But he warned that staff absenteeism would have to come down.

Paul Goggins, Labour MP for Wythenshawe and Sale East and a home office minister, said there were lessons to be learned from the Remploy factory in his own constituency.

He said the factory had faced closure 12 months ago but followng a concerted campaign it staved off closure and was awarded new contracts by local businesses.

Other measures were being considered to make the factory sustainable, he said, including making better use of factory space and facilities.

At a union demonstration outside the conference, Geoff Hollinshead told Disability Now he had worked at Remploy’s Porth factory in the Rhondda Valley for 27 years and had decided to stay after two negative experiences in mainstream employment.

He said: “The government wants to take disabled people off incapacity benefit but it is getting rid of the only chance of a job some disabled people have.”
Roy Norton, who has worked for Remploy for 21 years in the same factory as Hollinshead, said he feared that the remaining 54 Remploy factories would be closed within two years.

Picture: Remploy workers protest at the TUC's 2007 disability conference