Rolls-Royce workers across the UK rally to save Merseyside plant

Monday, 10th December 2007

Workers from Rolls-Royce sites across the UK will be joining a national solidarity protest today (10th December) in support of fellow workers fighting to save their jobs at the plant in Bootle.

Rolls-Royce workers will protest outside the major UK plants including Bootle, Bristol, Coventry, Derby, Inchinnan, East Kilbride, Sunderland and Barnoldswick with placards and banners.

Over 200 highly skilled engineering workers at Rolls-Royce, Bootle, which makes turbines for the oil and gas industries, will lose their jobs next year if company plans to shift production to its' Mount Vernon plant in the US go ahead.

The campaign 'Keep Rolls-Royce Pride on Merseyside', led by the UK's largest trade union, Unite, aims to stop the closure. The campaign has been gathering massive support across Merseyside. Now Unite is calling on fellow Rolls Royce workers from across the UK to back their fight to keep jobs and skills in the UK.

Unite National Officer, Ian Tonks, said: “It is scandalous that a global employer like Rolls-Royce can abandon its loyal workforce and shift production abroad. We are doing everything in our power to defend our member’s jobs on Merseyside and we will take on any company that attempts to exploit the UK's weak employment laws because it’s cheaper, quicker and easier to cut jobs here compared to the jobs of workers in other countries.

“Unite will continue to fight this closure and prevent the loss of further jobs and skills being sent abroad.”

Over 10,000 people across Merseyside have already signed up to support the campaign to ‘stop the Rolls-Royce’s planned closure. To add your name visit: http://www.amicustheunion.org/pdf/A4%20Petition%20rolls%20royce.pdf.

As part of the ongoing fight to save Rolls-Royce the campaign message 'Keep Rolls-Royce Pride on Merseyside’ was displayed on a giant poster site in Liverpool last week to mark the first month since the company announced it's plans to close its' Bootle site.