Commenting on the announcement of 300 redundancies at JVC in East Kilbride, Grahame Smith, STUC General Secretary said:
“This announcement is a massive blow to the JVC workforce and town of East Kilbride and, worryingly, comes at a time when Scottish manufacturing industry has been showing signs of a tentative recovery. Not for the first time in Scotland, the process by which the workers were informed of management’s decision is shameful.
“The STUC trusts that the Scottish Government and Scottish Enterprise Lanarkshire will do everything in their power to ensure that the redundant workers are re-employed as quickly as possible. It is regrettable that new opportunities in manufacturing will be extremely limited.
“The Scottish Government must act now to develop a coherent strategy for manufacturing in Scotland. The JVC redundancies come at the end of a week that also witnessed the refusal of the Lewis wind farm application; a project that would have brought skilled manufacturing jobs to the Western Isles. We have to ask whether the Government is serious about maximising the economic and employment benefits of growth sectors like renewable energy.
“Why are other European countries with wage costs comparable to Scotland and more robust regulatory regimes succeeding in retaining and, in some instances, growing their manufacturing base? The answer surely lies in economic development and corporate governance regimes which value the long over the short term, effective and meaningful social partnership at both political and workplace level and, crucially, success in exploiting growing markets abroad. It must also be stressed that it remains far easier to sack workers in the UK than on continental Europe”.
ENDS
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