Unite To Fight Linamar Closure

Unite has announced it will fight to save the 200 jobs at risk at the Linamar auto component plant in South Wales.

The Canadian firm announced that the Crymlyn Burrows factory is to close by the end of 2010.

Linamar has stated it will transfer the work to different plants overseas, believed to be in Mexico and Germany.

Unite has vowed to do all it can to save the plant during the 90-day consultation period announced by Linamar. Rob Williams, union convener for the plant said: "We are totally opposed to the closure of the plant. We will be discussing with our members over the next few days. We can either have 90 days of genuine discussion, or it means that workers have 90 days until they are unemployed. The redundancy deal on the table could be as much as £11 million. We believe it would be far better to use that £11 million for investment. We would rather the money was used to keep people in jobs."

The Neath Port Talbot-based plant, which employs around 200 workers, has been open since the 1960s, and was formerly owned by Ford and Visteon before being acquired by the Canadian-based Linamar Corporation in 2008.

The Linamar takeover, in July 2008, was heralded with a promise of "substantial investment" by the firm.

However, just five months later, the firm called for 208 voluntary redundancies, with 140 redundancies eventually made last March. Rob Williams said promises had not been kept. He said: "The investment hasn't happened."