Electrolux - another blow to manufacturing

As feared, this morning Electrolux issued a press release announcing the closure of its Spennymoor plant, which currently has about 500 staff.

It's telling that Electrolux put this UK plant under review, but didn't do the same to plants which were suffering greater losses in northern Europe. Could this be because of it's so much cheaper and easier and sack people here?

What an indictment for the neoliberal free-market madness pursued by Blair & Brown. The Spennymoor plant is in Blair's old constituency.

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Remploy shame

Anyone who has been to a union conference this year will probably have heard trade unionists employed by Remploy speaking out against the threat to close many of their plants.

Ministers made a lot of encouraging noises, but it's now clear that these were no more than attempts to kick the issue into touch until after the conference season.

28 factories are now to close and thousands of jobs for people with disabilities will go with them.

Work & Pensions Secretary Peter Hain is still trying to dress this up as good news:

The proposals will man many more disabled people supported in mainstream employment, fewer factory closures than previously planned and steady improvements in value for money.

All the unions representing members in Remploy continue to oppose the closures. The unions believe that if the current senior (mis-)management of Remploy got the boot, the business could be expanded rather than shrinking.

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Strikers get better off

Yesterday's Morning Star included a short report headed "UNISON wins High Court test case". The case (Cooper v Isle of Wight College) related to how much pay an employer can dock for strike action.

According the report, the ruling means employers will have to exclude annual leave and bank holidays when calculating how much pay to deduct for strike action. I've had a quick dig around on the web and can't find any mention of this on the UNISON web site, or anywhere else. Anyone got any more detail?

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