BAE (Vickers)

[JawD 99]

Sounds like it could be shutting down

[LoveTheBobby 1]

fuckssakes

[Howmanheyman 33282]

It's ok, there's plenty of other similar Manufacturing jobs in the North East, we're well looked after up here.

 

Or

 

 

Never mind, They can re-train and work in a call centre because the rest of the country love hearing Geordie accents and other accents from parts of the country with high unemployment and low wages.

[LoveTheBobby 1]

There's always the Olympics to look forward to . The chaps with the threat of redundancy should cheer themselves up with a trip up the £19,000,000 Olympic Sculpture . It's only £15 entry too . Things like that should get them back up on their feet no problem .

[Ayatollah Hermione 13894]

Fucking hell, man

[Ayatollah Hermione 13894]

There's always the Olympics to look forward to . The chaps with the threat of redundancy should cheer themselves up with a trip up the £19,000,000 Olympic Sculpture . It's only £15 entry too . Things like that should get them back up on their feet no problem .

 

aye, thank god us in the NE who are getting shafted for work have the London Olympics! Couldn't give two left bollocks about it (and I actually like watching it).

[Howmanheyman 33282]

If they're even luckier Will-I-am, Drogba or one of the Minor Royals might walk/ride past on a horse* (delete as appropriate) as they watch on in awe. God bless Lord Coe, the Tory Working Class hero.

[wykikitoon 20234]

Bad news man

[PaddockLad 17290]

Sounds like it could be shutting down

 

Aye...

 

Global Combat Systems Re-structuring

 

 

Page Content

In March, I announced a revised organisation structure for GCS and I am now in a position to update you on our re-structuring proposals. I have been analysing how we can work to establish the right footprint for our business and to size it to match the current and future projected workload. We need to be more agile and adapt to very challenging market conditions and it is essential that we look to further reduce our overheads to become more cost-effective.

 

A thorough review of possible work for Newcastle has concluded that there are no potential prospects of any new vehicle manufacturing work after the current Terrier programme is complete. We will, therefore, now begin consultation with the Trade Unions on the potential closure of the Newcastle site at the end of 2013, with the potential reduction of up to 330 roles (including 27 contractors). While I appreciate that this is difficult news, Terrier remains an important programme for the British Army and we must ensure that we continue to meet our programme milestones and deliver the 60 vehicles on time. As part of the consultation with the Trade Unions we intend to propose the retention of a small specialist team in the North East of England to provide on-going support to customers of our heavy tracked vehicles. The size and location of that team will form part of the consultation, but ultimately it will be dependent on the anticipated workload from customers, principally the UK MoD.

 

In this challenging business environment we need to ensure that our Head Office is lean and cost-effective. We will now enter into consultation with employees at Farnborough over a proposal to move out of the Chester House offices by 31 December 2012 and relocate to Telford. This will potentially affect up to 27 employees with up to ten job losses.

In Munitions the transformation programme is delivering year on year efficiency improvements and changes in current market conditions have also led to a reduction in volumes of products required by our UK customer. To ensure that the Munitions business remains cost-effective we will now begin consultation with the Trade Unions on the potential need to reduce the headcount in the business by up to 280 roles (100 employees and 180 contractors).

 

I appreciate that any announcement of this nature is difficult and I can assure you that we will, of course, support all of our employees affected by this announcement and will seek to mitigate the proposed job losses where possible.

 

In the meantime, I know I can trust you all to continue to focus on delivering quality products and services to our customers.

 

Charlie Blakemore

Managing Director

Global Combat Systems

 

Theyve cut loads in aviation in the last year and after the our part of the 2nd carrier is done in a couple of years it'll be our turn here in Pompey. All these lads can possibly look forward to is getting jobs on the Carrier project up in Rosyth if theyre lucky, probably through an employment agency. The team I was on last year had a lad from the Terrier project on it, he's from Washington and had been with Vickers/BAE since he left school.He took redundancy at 60 2 years ago and got a massive payout and now earns half decent money down here. Some may be in the same boat but unless you want to move from Newcastle I'd imagine a lot of his old muckers will never work again,not to mention lads with young families who need to put bread on the table every week.

[Monkeys Fist 42484]

At least Blair the war criminal kept up the demand.

 

Bad crack if they go.

[Howmanheyman 33282]

Every Manufacturing company around is obsessed with lean Manufacturing and it's natural to want to cut unnecessary costs but I sometimes wonder if it's just an excuse to clear the decks of the workforce, (in my experience, shifts can change, shifts can get downsized, Workers paid off but the Management/Clerical side never get touched), if they cut the workforce, work them harder then I suspect it's a bigger profit for a companies shareholders/Owner and a pat on the back/nice little bonus for the Hatchetman/'Troubleshooter' involved. I strongly suspect a large percentage of these type of redundancies are a way of maximising profits and are not always necessary and also when work picks up after a few months it's a piece of piss to casualise the workforce with Agency/temporary workers who can be called on as and when.

 

I never trust any of these statements and take them with a huge pinch dose of salt. Also companies know a statement like this will never be tested and put under scrutiny by a lazy media and public who are brainwashed into thinking any disgruntled Ex-employee/Union Spokesman are just moaning and usually believe the Company Spokesman's statement 100%.

 

Does our Government wonder what's going to happen with the surplus workers in all these situations?

[wykikitoon 20234]

Every Manufacturing company around is obsessed with lean Manufacturing and it's natural to want to cut unnecessary costs but I sometimes wonder if it's just an excuse to clear the decks of the workforce, (in my experience, shifts can change, shifts can get downsized, Workers paid off but the Management/Clerical side never get touched), if they cut the workforce, work them harder then I suspect it's a bigger profit for a companies shareholders/Owner and a pat on the back/nice little bonus for the Hatchetman/'Troubleshooter' involved. I strongly suspect a large percentage of these type of redundancies are a way of maximising profits and are not always necessary and also when work picks up after a few months it's a piece of piss to casualise the workforce with Agency/temporary workers who can be called on as and when.

 

I never trust any of these statements and take them with a huge pinch dose of salt. Also companies know a statement like this will never be tested and put under scrutiny by a lazy media and public who are brainwashed into thinking any disgruntled Ex-employee/Union Spokesman are just moaning and usually believe the Company Spokesman's statement 100%.

 

Does our Government wonder what's going to happen with the surplus workers in all these situations?

 

Of course it is, gaffers love hard times like this so they can cut deadwood etc

[StevenL 0]

Are there people on here in the Manufacturing industry? Sure in some job topic on here the majority of people had some poncey office job.

[Gemmill 44995]

Poncey office job here.

[Howmanheyman 33282]

Are there people on here in the Manufacturing industry? Sure in some job topic on here the majority of people had some poncey office job.

There's one or two I believe.

[Monkeys Fist 42484]

 

There's one or two I believe.

[NYD 0]

I work in manufacturing, I have a few mates who work there, gutted for them.

[PaddockLad 17290]

i work for a major defence contractor in manufacturing who may or may not be the parent company of what used to be Armstrong Vickers....

 

We flew past Armstrong's factory

And up by the Robin Adair

But gannin ower the Railway Bridge

The bus wheel flew off there

The lasses lost their crinolenes

And veils that hide their faces

I got two black eyes and a broken nose

In gannin to Blaydon Races

 

 

Ridley sang the song at a concert in Balmbra's Music Hall on 5 June 1862

 

Been around a long time....built the first ever British tanks which appeared in the Battle of the Somme in 1916.

Edited May 31, 2012 by PaddockLad

[BalarnyStone 0]

From a purely historical perspective, this is really shit. But at the end of the day, the whole BAE / MoD model is a disaster waiting to happen. When you can't even persuade India to buy your stuff, even though they are in commercial terms probably your biggest export prospect outside of the disgustingly corrupt oil funded markets, then you know you fucked up. Add to things like the protectionist Buy America policy (that says you can't get any US federal funding for anything not built in America), and there's pretty much no viable long term export market for British made military vehicles any more. And for better or worse, the British Armed Forces of 2012 certainly has no need for continually running military production lines.

 

But I hope there is someone out there who can make use of what is a brilliant site It would be excellent for literally any kind of large scale industrial manufacture. Even, god forbid, for making wind turbines. We certainly don't need any more poncy waterfront flats, or any more cultural shit. Levelling it to create an NEC type exhibition space wouldn't go amiss, but that would require vision in the local authority that simply isn't there.

 

For anyone who works there, I'd say don't lose hope, firstly because you're getting a hell of a big advance notice here, and second, because despite what people claim, there are manufacturing jobs all over this region. As for all this rubbish about the Olympics, I personally know quite a few people directly benefiting from it, and that's before you even consider the revenue from the SJP fixtures, so don't buy into that line of depressing North-South Scouse type victimhood shit either.

Edited June 1, 2012 by BalarnyStone

[LoveTheBobby 1]

The people you know benefitting from the Olympics - are tthey in the north east and in what sector if you don't mind me asking ?

[BalarnyStone 0]

The people you know benefitting from the Olympics - are tthey in the north east and in what sector if you don't mind me asking ?

 

The best example is a Stagecoach bus driver I know - he's being paid an obscene amount just to go down and transport athletes for a couple of weeks, with bed and board and a daily food allowance. As are apparently hundreds of other drivers from all over the country. He's laughing his way to the bank by all accounts. He doesn't even have to take fares, so being away from home aside, it's actually easier than his day job up here. Other people are staying here but are getting work/contracts for all sorts of Olympic related stuff - marketing, the tourist tat, all sorts. Someone I know in IT even actually got a bonus for a rush job rectifying a mistake by the original contractor, some London based knob head who over-pitched the original job.

[Gemmill 44995]

You're gonna need to do a bit better than one bus driver and an IT bod to convince me that the billions spent on the Olympics have been worth it to the NE like. Christ.

[BalarnyStone 0]

It's about 20 drivers actually, just from the 2 depots in the toon. Stagecoach also has depots in shields, the village of the damned, hartlepool, etc. As for 'billons', only half of that comes from central govt, the proportion of which comes from NE taxpayers is obviously small. The revenues from the football alone will be significant.

[LoveTheBobby 1]

Not being funny BS but they're highly ephemeral examples of individualistic opportunism . Hardly multi-million investment in infrastructure or amenities that comes with the white elephant .

[PaddockLad 17290]

Point is its a hugely expensive one off event, by its very nature any earnings or benefit to the NE or anywhere else in the UK will be temporary and passing. Nothing long term. Its really very little to crow about in the week when hundreds on Tyneside are losing their jobs....ok "Jack"?