Threat to Ericsson Coventry

Awful news yesterday that Ericsson wants to close its Coventry plant with the loss of 700 jobs.

This must be particularly shocking for the staff who moved from the Stoke plant to Coventry only six months ago when that closed down.

As a press release issued by the local UNITE branch puts it:

"This will effectively be the end of the former Coventry based business that bought Marconi, formerly GEC-Telecommunications which at one time employed over 20,000 workers around Coventry."

Ericsson want to save money (i.e. increase profits) by moving the work to lower-cost countries. This is further evidence that the issue of offshoring threatens jobs right across the skill and technology spectrum.

Let's hope UNITE can mount a successful campaign to defend the jobs.