Remploy workers on final picket

Feb 21 2008 by Aaron Boland, Liverpool Daily Post

DISABLED workers from two Merseyside factories will be standing on the picket lines for the final time today.

The last day of industrial action is being held by Remploy workers facing factory closures.

They are furious at the closure decision made by former Work and Pensions Secretary Peter Hain, who at first appeared to put a block on the closures during last year’s Labour Party conference, when he said there would be no closures without ministerial approval.

But late last year it was announced that 28 plants employing more than 1,600 workers would close. Fifteen factories had been removed from the original list.

Both the Aintree and St Helens sites will close, while the Central Cutting Unit in Wallasey would be shut and merged with the Birkenhead factory.

The workers had hoped to change the Government’s mind.

More than 100 took part in the action which each Wednesday and Thursday throughout February.

Paul Bragg, GMB senior steward, said: “It’s a sad state of affairs when disabled people are having to fight tooth and nail to keep their factory open.”

Remploy has said they found it “difficult to see what benefit will be gained by this industrial action”.