More Support For Remploy
Thursday 1st December 2011
CLIVE LEWIS, LABOUR CANDIDATE,
NORWICH SOUTH, & RICHARD HOWETT MEP CALL ON 40 EAST OF ENGLAND
COUNCILS TO PROVIDE WORK TO REMPLOY FACTORIES THREATENED BY THE
GOVERNMENT WITH CLOSURE
It is important that we mark
International Day for Disabled People by making people aware of the
level of disabilities in our communities and get them to put
pressure on their local councils to provide work to the remaining
54 Remploy factories where over 4,000 disabled people work says
GMB
Two prominent Labour politicians have
called on 40 East of England councils to provide work to Remploy
factories being threatened with closure. These factories employ
4,000 disabled workers.
The two politicians, Clive Lewis,
Labour Candidate for Norwich South and Richard Howett MEP for East
of England, will visit the Norwich Remploy factory tomorrow Friday
2nd December at 11 a.m. to speak to GMB members facing
the sack.
The visit comes the day before
December 3rd which is the United National (UN)
International Day of Persons with Disability. It aims to increase
the understanding of the issued around disabilities and attention
to the dignity, rights and wellbeing of people with
disabilities.
GMB last week wrote to all 40 East of England
councils that were revealed in a recent GMB report not to be
providing a single public procurement contract to Remploy factories
and asking them to change their policy and keep disabled workers in
work. Councils are allowed to provide work to disabled workers
sheltered employment factories under EU procurement rules.
The 40 East of England councils are Babergh,
Basildon, Braintree, Breckland, Brentwood, Broadland, Broxbourne,
Cambridge, Castle Point, Chelmsford, Colchester, Dacorum, East
Cambridgeshire, East Hertfordshire, Epping Forest, Fenland, Forest
Heath, Great Yarmouth, Harlow, Hertsmere, Huntingdonshire, Ipswich,
King`s Lynn & West Norfolk, Maldon, Mid Suffolk, North
Hertfordshire, North Norfolk, Norwich, Rochford, South
Cambridgeshire, South Norfolk, St Albans, Stevenage, Suffolk
Coastal, Tendring, Three Rivers, Uttlesford, Watford, Waveney and
Welwyn Hatfield.
The Remploy factory in Norwich is the only
Remploy factory in the East of England. . GMB is urging the East of
England public to lobby their local councillors to provide work to
Remploy. In Britain as a whole there are 201 out of 408 councils
not placing working with Remploy factories.
The Government is planning to stop funding
Remploy and thereby close all remaining 54 UK factories. The
Remploy workers crucial campaign objective is to get the workload
up from the current 50% of capacity to 100% and to keep Remploy
factories open.
The deliberate policy of starving Remploy
factories of work has rendered them less economic, being only 50%
loaded with work because either public bodies have failed to
support them with work as allowed under EU rules or their own
managers are turning down work.
Remploy workers want help to get their
factories fully loaded. Members of the public can help if they are
involved with any of these bodies or can lobby MPs,
councillors and others to get them to place work with Remploy.
These factories have a successful track record
going back to 1946 till the public authorities stopped loading them
with work in 1990s due to then EU directive. The EU rules have been
changed and the factories can be successful again when they are
fully loaded. Making uniforms for the armed forces, emergency
services and medical staff, and supplying schools would more than
keep them busy.
Glen Holdom, GMB East of England Organiser
responsible for GMB members working at Remploy said,
"GMB welcome the support of these two politicians for this
initiative to help people become aware of the
level of disabilities and get them to put pressure on their local
councils to provide work to the remaining 54 Remploy factories
where over 4,000 disabled people are employed.
GMB has asked all 40 East of England
councils that are not taking advantage of the EU rules, that allow
them to provide contracts to disabled workers in sheltered company
like Remploy, which public procurement contract they will provide
to Remploy and when.
It is not good enough for these 40
councils to ignore the situation when they have it in their power
to provide work to Remploy factories that will keep them open if
they do so. They will be spending the money anyway and they should
be spending it with Remploy to give jobs to disabled
people.
GMB want a reply from each of the
councils before Christmas tell us which contract is going to
Remploy, how much it is worth and when it will be
transferred.
If abled bodied workers are having
trouble getting jobs it will be far harder for these disabled
worker to find jobs in main stream industry if the Remploy
factories are closed down by the government.”
Richard Howitt MEP said, "Remploy
gives people with disabilities the chance to participate on an
equal footing in the workplace and the closure of the last factory
in the region would be a body-blow for its workers.
I successfully fought to change the European rules on procurement
to encourage councils to buy from organisations like Remploy and
I'm deeply saddened that so many in the region haven't yet done
so.
I call on all our local councils to look again at their spending
and make every effort to support Remploy and keep their factories
open and viable."
End
GMB Remploy Contacts:
East of England; Glen Holdom, GMB Organiser on
07974 251 723 or Phil Davies, GMB National Secretary on 07850
966465 or 0208 947 313 or Les Woodward, GMB National Convener at
Remploy on 07977 436251 or any of the regional contacts shown below
or GMB Press Office: Rose Conroy on 07974 251823.
Notes to Editors:
1
Regional table of councils NOT providing work to Remploy
factories
|
Region
|
Number of councils by
region that don’t provide contracts
|
Total number of regional
councils
|
|
|
|
|
|
South East
|
51 out of
|
74
|
|
Eastern
|
40 out of
|
52
|
|
East Midlands
|
33 out of
|
45
|
|
South West
|
25 out of
|
42
|
|
North West
|
17 out of
|
41
|
|
West Midlands
|
16 out of
|
33
|
|
Yorkshire & the Humber
|
8 out of
|
22
|
|
Scotland
|
7 out of
|
32
|
|
Wales
|
2 out of
|
22
|
|
London
|
1 out of
|
33
|
|
North East
|
1 out of
|
12
|
|
National
|
201 out
of
|
408
|
2
Here is the full list of 54 Remploy factories across the UK under
threat of closure when current public funding ends in April 2013.
If these proposals go ahead 4,000 workers will lose their jobs. The
alphabetical list of Remploy factories facing closure is as
follows: Aberdare, Aberdeen, Abertillery, Acton, Ashington,
Barking, Barrow, Birkenhead, Birmingham, Blackburn, Bolton,
Bridgend, Bristol, Burnley, Chesterfield, Cleator Moor, Clydebank,
Coventry, Cowdenbeath, Croespenmaen, Derby, Dundee, Edinburgh,
Gateshead, Heywood, Huddersfield, Leeds, Leicester, Leven,
Manchester, Merthyr Tydfil, Motherwell, Neath Port Talbot,
Newcastle, North London, North Staffordshire, Norwich, Oldham,
Penzance, Pontefract, Poole, Porth, Portsmouth, Preston, Sheffield,
Southampton, Spennymoor, Springburn, Stirling, Sunderland, Swansea,
Wigan, Worksop and Wrexham.
3 Keep up to
date with the campaign to keep Remploy at live at http://www.gmb.org.uk/ and http://www.svaeremployfactories.co.uk/
4 Remploy
goods and services
Remploy goods and services are used by many
public sector organisations including central government
departments, local government, police, fire and rescue, schools and
universities are benefitting by procuring goods and services from
the many enterprise businesses that Remploy have to offer. From
supplying furniture to thousands of schools to contracts with the
Royal Mail, CCTV monitoring to local authorities, the Flexible New
Deal contract for the Department for Work and Pensions, Employment
Service Operations to Job Centre Plus, Automotive services to over
30 police forces, IT recycling (E-cycle) services to the Welsh
Assembly Government, Remploy is providing a cost effective,
efficient and valuable service to these organisations amongst many
hundreds of other satisfied clients.
5 A 100,000
strong signature petition calling on the government to save Remploy
factories was presented to 10 Downing Street on Monday
7th November 2011.
6 Data
supplied by Remploy and analysed by independent researchers on
behalf of GMB.