ANGRY Remploy workers in Wirral held a lunchtime protest yesterday soon after the Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain announced the closure of 28 sites across the country.

The employees – all from the Central Cutting Unit, in Wallasey – said they were the “best performing business in the whole of Remploy”.

The unit, which employs 43 people, is to merge with a nearby Remploy centre on Dock Road which employs 42.

Worker Paul Bragg said the decision had been “personal” and added: “It’s because we have led the campaign against this for five years.

“We have a highly skilled workforce and if we lose those skills they will be gone forever.”

Mr Bragg said they would still not give up the battle and would be seeking public contracts to continue to keep the Central Cutting Unit workers employed.

Many of the workers held up banners outside the factory and drivers beeped their horns in encouragement as they passed by.

Local councillor Leah Fraser joined the protest and said she was disgusted by the decision.

She added: “To close this factory is an outrageous decision by the Government. It’s clear to me that the training and support given at Remploy has made the difference between working and unemployment for many. I’m all for integrating the disabled into the mainstream workplace, but it’s blindingly obvious that one size doesn’t fit all – there’s room for both, Remploy factories and employment services.”

“The workers from Remploy have run a fantastic campaign and deserve better than this.

There was anger, too, in St Helens which will lose its £10.5m Remploy factory opened three years ago.

It had been hailed as a “model” working environment for disabled people and there had been the promise of increasing an 80-strong team to 200.

The leader of St Helens council, Cllr Brian Spencer, leader of St Helens council, said the “retrograde and short-sighted” move could see the loss of 2,000 nationwide.

“Trade unions have said that none of the factories should close and argue that they could be expanded if the company’s senior management team were replaced. This is a Government failure of massive proportions affecting some of the most vulnerable people in our communities,” he said.

Councillor Spencer is now writing to Peter Hain asking him to reverse his decision because of the detrimental effects it would have.

Most of the Remploy closures, including the site at Aintree, will go through by the end of March and all of them will be completed by July.

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Mr Hain had told the Commons that 55 of Remploy’s 83 factories would remain open after a consultation exercise.

Remploy had originally proposed to close or merge 43 of the factories due to increasing competition from abroad, until Mr Hain stepped in during Labour’s party conference.

Remploy factories manufacture everything from furniture to car parts to chemical protection suits, and employ mainly disabled people with help from Government subsidies.

“There will be 15 fewer factory closures with 55 factories remaining open and 11 merging,” Mr Hain said.

In Parliament Birkenhead’s Labour MP Frank Field sought assurances from Mr Hain that Remploy workers moving from secure employment to the private sector would have their pensions protected.

Mr Hain confirmed that Remploy workers who would no longer be able to work for the company would still be able to maintain final salary pension schemes and maintain their salaries.

Unions and campaigners have fought a fierce battle over the proposed closures.

Mr Hain said the vast majority of disabled people wanted jobs in mainstream employment and increasingly Remploy had “struggled to fulfil” its role.

Low wage competition from countries like China had put Remploy factories under “enormous pressure”.

He said: “Losses have spiralled and Remploy’s ability to support disabled people has been put at risk.”

Without modernisation, Remploy deficits threatened to “obliterate” all the Government’s other programmes for the disabled.

Remploy said it welcomed the Government statement, adding: “The company will now set about achieving the objective of quadrupling the number of disabled people it supports into mainstream employment.”

But Paul Kenny, general secretary of the GMB union, said: “This announcement has angered Remploy workers and their supporters. This Government-controlled operation has failed its people, its principles and its purpose.

“These closures are completely unnecessary. If Remploy was called Northern Rock, I am certain that we would not be seeing a single redundancy.”

Workers said it was the “darkest day” in Remploy’s 60-year history, adding they felt “betrayed” by the Government.