Trade unions express anger at Shorts Brothers jobs cuts

Hundreds of workers and their union representatives from Bombardier Aerospace assembled outside the gates of Shorts, Belfast in order to display their concerns over the further job losses announced by the aerospace company.

In a move which was publicised before Christmas Shorts announced that by the end of January 2002, 523 permanent jobs were to be axed, in accordance with steps to enact the 2,000 job cuts announced in September 2001.

On Monday January 7 Shorts announced that 290 jobs compulsory redundancies would be served over the next week, starting from Monday, and to take immediate effect as of January 18.

Taken in conjunction with 100 jobs already lost before Christmas, 390 workers will have lost their jobs before January’s end.

At the trade union organised meeting of Technical and Professional staff, members took a vote on Monday afternoon to move to an industrial action ballot. Members also voted for an overtime ban, implying workers will not be available to work the overtime in order to support services.

Members also thirdly voted to write a letter to Stormont Trade Minister Sir Reg Empey in order to express their concerns about the future of Shorts.

Speaking after the meeting MSF acting Senior Steward Gary Faulkner said: “We feel that Bombardier are in breach of their obligation be they agreements, contracts or legislation. They have in many ways let everybody down and the people of Northern Ireland. We got here today a visible indication of the feeling of the engineers in Shorts and how they feel about their future and what action they are prepared to use in order to preserve it.”

However on Monday, in a statement the firm said: “This is less than the 523 permanent jobs we earlier envisaged would be lost in this financial year.”

The company also added that they expected the overall job losses to be “several hundred less than the 2000 we announced last September.”

Shorts said they attributed this move to the “success of some of the Trade Unions and to some of our customers revising production rates upwards.”

In the statement Shorts also said: “Regrettably we are losing some of our valued employees and we recognise this is a very difficult time for them and their families. It is unfortunate that we have to implement jobs cuts, but it is necessary in order to protect the remaining jobs and survive and grow the company in the future.” (AMcE)