Toleman to cut job! t Ford plants
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by Juliet Parish • Car transporter Toleman Automotive is cutting jobs in the hope of retaining compound contracts at Halewood and Dagenham which car giant Ford is considering taking in-house to slash costs.
And its competitor Silcock Express is believed to be planning redundancies at the same sites Toleman plans to cut its workforce of 595 by 12% this summer by asking 70 staff to take "voluntary severance or early retirement" by the end of July. Most of the cuts are expected to be made at Halewood and Dagenham, where it transfers Ford cars between the production line, ports and dealers. It expects 20 HGV drivers to accept the offer.
Toleman hopes that the cuts will make its operations more attractive: "We are making the cuts to maintain the competitiveness of ourselves in the light of the workload we have got at the moment and to ensure we are competitive for future bids," says Toleman Automotive chairman Roger Pinnington, Silcock Express says: "We are in the middle of detailed discussions with staff on a number of employment-related issues at Liverpool and Dagenham. At this stage it would be inappropriate to make ally public announcement." Silcock Express was taken over by Tibbet & Britten last year.
So far at least 30 staff at Toleman have volunteered to leave. Most are employed in the Merseyside area, where 25 left last week. The Transport & General Workers Union says there will be no more voluntary cuts in Merseyside and if the company imposes compulsory cuts it will press for industrial action.
"Nobody will leave who does not want to," says TGWU regional trade group officer Jim Gouldbourne. He says that a ballot last month of 174 Toleman employees and 140 Silcock employees in Merseyside showed members would be prepared to strike if there are compulsory redundancies. The two workforces combined are believed to include 140 drivers who do not work on the Ford contract.
Gouldbourne says that although compound staff are being targeted by the cuts, drivers may also be hit if there are compulsory redundancies.
"It could be a case of last in first out," he says. "The car delivery industry is always looking to trim labour and get the remaining staff to do the same amount of work because they have always got a competitor breathing down their neck."
Ford says that it has no plans to change the way the compound contracts at I lalewood and Dagenham are run at this stage: "Ford is working with all suppliers to reduce costs. Although we are considering a lot of things at the moment, including in-house plant movement, we have no plans to change."