Workers in BAE protest (From York Press)

Workers in BAE protest

10:10am Thursday 3rd May 2012 in East Yorkshire news

ALMOST 600 East Yorkshire aircraft workers who are threatened with redundancy travelled to London to protest at their firm’s annual general meeting.

BAE plans to end manufacturing at Brough, which makes the Hawk training jet, next year and the closure will lead to 845 job losses, with the company saying the move will ensure competitiveness. Ian Gent, of the Unite union, said he was looking to put questions to BAE’s board and lobby major shareholders. He said: “We hear this term ‘responsible capitalism’, but what we believe we’re seeing from BAE is behaviour which is irresponsible capitalism and purely and utterly about the bottom line.”

A BAE statement said: “We are working with a number of organisations alongside our trade unions to find alternative work which will maintain our employees’ skills in the manufacturing and engineering industries.”