Job cuts at Leyland Bus
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• Leyland Bus is to transfer all chassis assembly to Workington during 1990, and will close its Farington assembly plant with the loss of 380 jobs. LB's headquarters will remain at Farington, alongside the engineering and product development, and the manufacture of ZF gearbox parts. The company is to invest .25 million at Workington, creating 70 new jobs. Farington will continue to provide components for Workington, and ,23 million a year will he invested there under Volvo Truck Component management. It will also develop "a whole new range of city buses for the 1990s", says the company. Leyland Bus made "considerable operating losses" in 1989, and managing director John Arkle says that the restructuring is designed to "reduce our costs and bring production capacity in line with forecast demand."
Plans to build BlOM chassis at Workington will go ahead, and the team-building system will be introduced as other chassis work is transferred from Farington.
Following the creation of a combined Leyland and Volvo importer and distributor network last year, the two sales and marketing organisations are to be combined. Most staff will be in Gothenburg, but UK and Far East specialists will remain at Farington.
▪ Staff at the Workington plant voted last week to begin strike action on 22 January over a pay and productivity dis
pute but Leyland Bus says this has nothing to do with the restructuring announcement.
The Workington plant currently builds the Lynx singledecker and Olympian bodywork.