Unions to fight as US group axes Gloucester plant

Union leaders pledged to fight the closure of a Gloucester engineering works which is set to close with the loss of 200 jobs.

Employees at the air compressor factory owned by US firm Gardner Denver were reeling yesterday after receiving a letter from the company informing them they would be joining a long line of West workers to face redundancy this autumn.

The work being carried out at the plant in Chequers Bridge will move to other Gardner Denver bases in the UK and the USA during 2009 if the planned closure goes ahead.

The company is now in a 90-day consultation with the works council including the unions.

But union representatives promised to fight to save the factory and would be meeting with Gloucester MP Parmjit Dhanda as soon as possible to look at what action could be taken. They added that they would be checking the consultation process has been "meaningful and in good time" and was not just a sham for a decision that had already been made.

A trade union official was at the factory yesterday to discuss the situation with the workforce.

Unite's South West representative Christine Starling said:"We're going to try to save the site if we can. We don't want the factory to disappear from the centre of Gloucester because it's 200 jobs."

"Everybody is in a great deal of shock. They were not expecting this at all. We are in the very stages at the moment but we will be checking that the consultation is in good time and has been meaningful.

"We will have to establish that over the next few days and we have lots of questions to ask the company.

"The closure will affect many more than 200 people as it is all their families too."

A leaked letter sent to employees on Monday shows the full extent of the company's intentions.

It reveals plans to move several departments including management, finance, and some sales operations to the Redditch base of CompAir – a rival air compressor maker which Gardner Denver bought earlier this month.

High pressure operations will go to CompAir's Ipswich site, while a process known as breathing air block production will be transferred to a site in the USA.

The letter states that if the proposal is accepted then the Gloucester site will close and operations will be phased out completely by the end of 2009.

The management team at Gardner Denver was not available for comment yesterday but the company said in a statement:

"Following the acquisition we have now commenced consultations internally on the best way to restructure the business in order to consolidate core competencies, position the business to enhance customer service and maximise future growth potential."

Gardner Denver's West plant is based on the former site of Williams and James, one of Gloucester's oldest engineering firms.

There was more bad news for Gloucestershire yesterday as it emerged GE Aviation plans to close its electronic circuits operation which employs 19 people in Tewkesbury.

The company said it was confident it could relocate at least 11 employees to sites at Bishops Cleeve near Cheltenham or Newmarket in Suffolk but the remaining eight staff may lose their jobs if alternative work cannot be found within GE.

Yesterday's cuts join a long list of job cuts in the West in the past two months. October has already seen Dyson, Focus DIY, Screwfix and ITV West announced job losses approaching 300 in total, after a "Black September" in which the axe fell on about 1,000 workers.