The EMF reacts to announcement of closure of the Ryton PSA site (UK)
The managing director of PSA, Jean-Martin Folz, has just announced the closure of its Ryton site in the UK. The PSA group of companies is due to cease all production activities at Ryton by mid-2007. This decision is catastrophic, not only for the 2,300 British workers concerned but also for all those in related employment in the supplier industries in the region.
“It’s the whole industrial fabric of the Midlands, which has already been hard hit by Rover’s bankruptcy and Jaguar being closed, that is now affected.” stated the EMF’s General Secretary, Peter Scherrer, adding: “We just cannot allow a whole region to sink into de-industrialisation.”
According to management, the grounds for its decision are high production and logistic costs which do not permit the new investment required to manufacture a new vehicle to succeed the Peugeot 206 currently produced at the Ryton site. The EMF deplores the fact that there was no real prior consultation with the employees’ representatives and their unions on industrial choices and alternatives although the workers’ representatives at both national and European level had been questioning management about the future of the Ryton site for several months. The EMF’s opinion is that socially responsible management of change within a company presupposes the involvement of employees prior to decision-taking in order to arrive at socially acceptable solutions for all concerned.
This decision has also been taken at a time when production is increasing at the Trnava site in Slovakia. The EMF calls on PSA management to enter into talks and consultation with the employees’ representatives at European level on the group’s future global industrial strategy and on its investment policy. The EMF’s view is that a strategy chiefly based on low-costs is no guarantee for activities and employment in the long term.
The EMF strongly expresses its support for all the British workers affected by this announcement, and for their families. It undertakes to do all in its power to safeguard their jobs and uphold their dignity.
