Jobs pledge one year after factory closures

9:34am Thursday 22nd May 2008

REMPLOY hopes to help put hundreds of North-East disabled workers into jobs, a year after it announced factory closures.

Today marks the first anniversary of the firm announcing its modernisation programme, which involved the closure earlier this year of 28 of its 83 factories, including Stockton, Hartlepool and York.

The Government-subsidised company's Jarrow factory, in South Tyneside, was merged with Newcastle.

In total, 186 disabled workers were affected, but chief executive Bob Warner hopes highstreet branches in the North- East would find mainstream work for 500 disabled people a year.

He said: "Last year, we got 6,700 people work in the mainstream, so we are on target for the 20,000 figure we set for five years.

"In the North-East, we got 156 jobs, which was a bit disappointing.

"The week after next, when we open high-street branches in Newcastle and Sunderland, we think they can get 250 people a year into work.

"It is a shame really, because all the good stuff we have been doing has been dwarfed by the discussions and arguments about factory closures.

"What we are hoping now is, having put that behind us, we can move forward and get more jobs for more people.

"We are pretty confident we can get that 6,700 figure up, and that is massively more than we have ever employed in factories.

"We hope that the difficulties that everybody has been through are behind us."

Remploy guaranteed that no disabled person would be made compulsorily redundant and that any disabled employee who wished to remain with the company on their current terms and conditions could do so, while working for another local employer.

Mr Warner said: "A lot of people took voluntary redundancy and if any of them want to work we want them to contact us and we'll give them all the support they need."

In 2006, Remploy's factories made a loss of £6m. Ministers argued it was too heavily subsidised by the taxpayer, with each job, they claimed, costing £20,000 a year.

Mr Warner said: "Like any other industry or manufacturing business we have targets to meet.

"We are pretty sure we are well on target, but we have to get better and better and to improve our losses per person.

"If we can get it down to £10,000 loss per person, it is still a lot but we can justify that to the taxpayer."

Mr Warner also believed some of the comments made when the factory closures were announced had been "unfair."

Stockton North MP Frank Cook described Remploy's managers as "disgraceful, mendacious, mischievous and arrogant".

Mr Warner said: "I was in the House of Commons when he made these comments.

"It is such an emotive subject you can understand why people get worked up about it.

"We have all worked hard to make Remploy a success and the factory mangers do a great job, it is a tough job.

"I feel sorry for them. Some of the comments made were not fair on factory managers."

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