Top level union talks were taking place today over ways of averting the shock closure of Hadley Castle’s BAE Systems defence factory with the projected loss of more than 200 jobs.
A meeting of senior union officials was taking place in Leeds as the political fallout intensified over last week’s announcement by BAE that it wants to close three plants across the UK by June next year.
Wrekin MP Mark Pritchard accused the Government of letting the town down, especially after Hadley’s workforce had rallied to calls to back UK troops on the frontlines.
Ironically, it is Britain’s departure from Iraq which is said to be partly behind the economic pressures upon the defence firm.
Regional officer of the Unite union Stefan Blasczyk said officials from all the threatened plants would be attending today’s meeting.
“The meeting is to discuss more details of the company’s proposals and we are optimistic that there is a lot of time between now and next year and a lot of things can happen,” he said.
“We will be hoping we can mitigate the circumstances and find ways of making sure the redundancies don’t take place. I am optimistic we can cut the number of job losses. We are also hoping to keep the Telford site open.”
Mr Pritchard, the Secretary of the Conservative Parliamentary Defence Committee, said: “This is another huge blow to local defence jobs. If the government had not cancelled the order for the next generation of fighting armoured vehicles these job losses could have been avoided.”