Updated: CAMPAIGNERS have resurrected their battle to reopen a doomed York factory that provided disabled people with an employment lifeline by vowing to stage a mass demonstration in the city.
Union leaders are mounting a crusade to bring Remploy’s operation in the city back from the dead after discovering almost half the staff who once worked there are still unemployed six months after it closed.
The GMB union said there was a “strong case” for salvaging the York factory, which used to make chemical warfare suits for the military but was shut down in March as part of a Government cost-cutting exercise which spelt the end for 29 Remploy bases.
Former York workers who lobbied delegates at the Labour conference in Manchester yesterday now hope to hold a huge November protest about what they claim are “broken promises” from Remploy’s board of directors.
GMB national officer Phil Davies said a union survey of 2,500 Remploy workers who lost their jobs through the cutbacks had revealed hundreds had not been able to find other jobs and, as they did not take redundancy, were being paid to stay at home through a compensation scheme, while others were having to work in charity shops.
It also showed 23 of the 54 people who once worked at York’s Redeness Street plant – which, as The Press revealed yesterday, has now been sold at auction for £180,000 – are still out of work.
“There is a lot of bitterness about the way the Government has handled the closures,” said Mr Davies, who, together with dozens of other GMB members, has resigned from the Labour Party in protest.
“They have treated Remploy workers disgracefully and let them down. This has affected not only thousands of workers, but also their friends and families.”
Ex-Remploy worker John Wilson, 58, the GMB’s assistant shop steward at the York factory, was among those taking part in yesterday’s Manchester protest. He said: “We’re planning a big social event in the next few weeks with the aim of organising a major demonstration in York in November.
“Promises made when Remploy closed, such as setting up a job shop to help us find work within six months of the factory closing, have gone down the tubes, and it’s clear the positions Remploy’s board said would be available are just not there.
“That means our fight is up and running again and we want to prove we’re not going away because we still believe these closures were badly-handled and a York factory should reopen.”
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