ADL branded ‘disgraceful and deceptive’ over Guildford production
closure and Falkirk and Scarborough redundancies
- Thursday
20 August 2020
Alexander Dennis (ADL), the UK’s largest bus and
coach builder, has been blasted for its ‘disgraceful and deceptive’ behaviour
by Unite following the shock announcement that it will close production at its
site in Guildford, Surrey, with the loss of 200 jobs, as well as making
swingeing redundancies at its plants in Falkirk and Scarborough.
Staff were told today (20 August) that production at Guildford will end during
a meeting called to provide more details of the 650 job losses across the
firm’s sites at Falkirk, Guildford and Scarborough, which were announced
earlier this month. The company has told staff at Falkirk that 160 jobs will
go, with more still to be announced, while 90 jobs will go in Scarborough.
ADL has ostensibly blamed a drop in business due to coronavirus for the cuts.
While the acknowledging the impact on orders, Unite said ADL is using Covid-19
as an excuse to accelerate restructuring plans developed before the pandemic
(see notes below).
Earlier this week, Unite exposed the plans by
ADL’s parent company, the NFI Group, to potentially close a UK site and
outsource a large bus building contract for Berlin to a company in Turkey,
despite using the decline in orders to try and justify planned cuts.
In a recording from an NFI investors meeting on August 6, the group’s chief
financial officer Pipasu Sinui said that NFI‘s strategy is about
generating 'significant returns for
shareholders’ and was developed before the pandemic.
NFI CEO Paul Soubry also stated that many bus orders have been ‘shifted’ from 2020
to 2021, rather than being cancelled, and said that bus markets ‘will recover and will be a
critical driver for economic recovery for the long term’.
Unite has been calling for the prime minister's promised order of 4,000 new low
emission buses to be brought forward to help the bus and coach industry to
recover from Covid-19, but says any support must now be conditional on ADL
ending job cuts and outsourcing and committing to the long term
future of each site.
Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner said: “While the
coronavirus crisis has undoubtedly impacted ADL’s short term operations
following a collapse in orders from UK bus operators, the firm’s Canadian
parent company NFI has exposed the true extent of its betrayal of UK workers,
their families and communities.
“Pre-Covid plans, identified by Unite following disclosure of information
requests, are now being accelerated to use the pandemic as an excuse to bring
forward the ending of production at Guildford and attack jobs across the group
while outsourcing work abroad in order to line shareholder pockets. The fact
that all this is being done after the company took full advantage of UK
taxpayer’s money through the job retention scheme, and after our help has been
sought to secure government funding for advanced manufacture of green
buses, is a gross betrayal of a loyal, world class workforce.
“ADL and NFI’s disgraceful and deceptive actions are devastating for
workers and communities across the UK. If ADL believe that Unite will not
organise workers and communities to fight these cuts they are sorely mistaken.
ADL’s workforce is rightly incandescent at the way they have been treated, they
will not stand for it and their union will be shoulder to shoulder with them at
every step of this fight.”
Unite national officer for automotive Steve Bush said: “These
disgraceful cuts are an acceleration of the footprint reduction outlined in
NFI’s pre-Covid strategy – a strategy that until this week was hidden from
ADL’s UK workforce.
“The company has made no attempt at a proper consultation with Unite and
has attempted to pass off these cuts as an inevitable result of the pandemic
downturn. Unite has received no official confirmation of the job losses
announced this morning and staff are still in the dark as to where many of the
redundancies will fall.
“ADL and NFI’s actions are naked corporate vandalism driven by greed and
will not go unchallenged by Unite. The union continues to call for the
government to bring forward its order of 4,000 new low emission buses, but any
public money including new orders, must now be conditional on the company
retaining jobs and keeping work in the UK."
ENDS
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