Jaguar Land Rover staff have mixed feelings over takeover

Mar 27 2008 by Richard Down, Liverpool Daily Post

STAFF at Jaguar Land Rover said they felt a mixture of fear and relief at the Tata takeover.

Many employees have worked at the Halewood factory for decades, and while they are glad their pensions and jobs are safe, they say the jury is out on new employers, Tata.

Line feeder Paul Owens, 44, said: “At the moment we don’t think things will change that much but there are always rumours.

Fellow line feeder Marc Jones, 21, agreed: “We’ll have to see whether Tata keeps its promises. We’d like to know more about their intentions.”

Steve Sackey, who has been at the plant for 28 years, echoed these concerns.

He said: “Nobody’s celebrating inside the plant that I can see. Although there are these promises on the table with Ford and the union over our pensions, Tata can easily just walk away with no come back.”

But production line worker Tommy Early, 56, from St Helens, has been at the plant for 35 years and said the overwhelming feeling was one of relief.

“It didn’t matter to us who bought Jaguar Land Rover – as long as we kept our jobs and our pensions.”

John McCormick, 53, a paintshop worker from Speke has been at the plant for 35 years.

He said the factory had a bigger impact on the local community than many realised.

“People talk about the 2,200 people who work here but there are many other local industries that would suffer from the plant closing,” he said.

“It’s almost like you could take those people who would be out of a job here and multiply it by 10 for the number of people actually affected.”