The latest round of job losses at BAE System's Brough site has finally been drawn to a close. Today, Caroline Wheeler looks back on the 21-month 'Battle for Brough'.
THE last of the redundancies at BAE's Brough site have now been made – almost two years after the company delivered the bombshell that it was slashing 899 jobs from its distinguished workforce.
The redundancy process, which began on September 27, 2011, has formally ended – 21 months after it began.
In total, there have been just 21 compulsory redundancies and a further 360 workers have since left the company voluntarily. The number of jobs lost was far fewer than initially expected after the Mail's Battle for Brough campaign.
But the site's union conveners claim that despite their valiant efforts to save jobs, they do not see the outcome as a "victory" for Brough and its workforce.
They also maintain the business case behind the decision to lay off workers, which was blamed on a slowdown in Government orders, was flawed.
Roy Cartwright, full-time works union convenor at the site, said: "From a shop floor view, how can we see this outcome as a victory?
"The redundancy saw the manual population shrink from 417 to 160.
"It also sees the manuals in an area that will sit outside of the new BAE Systems perimeter fence, building small detail work that could quite easily be moved off site as part of any future order off-set package."
Ian Gent, who is a full-time staffs union convener at the site, said: "From my perspective, it has been very hard to consider the low numbers of compulsories and the 400 mitigated jobs as a 'victory' given that the company's business case was and is flawed.
"The outcome of the company's announcement in September 2011, is that we still had workers forced into unemployment and many more that left voluntarily with the view that it was better to do that than go through the distress of being selected for redundancy.
"It has also meant, much as we always feared, that there have been those that have left the aerospace sector altogether and also left the Humber region."
Despite months of campaigning, it was not until May last year, that the company finally had a change of heart about its intentions for Brough, which was set to see the end of its 100-year manufacturing history.
BAE Systems agreed to mitigate several hundred jobs by bringing work previously done under subcontract elsewhere back in-house – despite pushing ahead with its decision to move the Hawk assembly work to its Lancashire sites.
It meant that the future of the site, which will now manufacture small assembly parts for all future Hawk orders, including those recently placed by Saudi Arabia and Oman, is secure until at least 2016.
But more needs to be done if the workforce is to secure a long-term future at Brough.
"There is good technical work but we remain very cautious about being over optimistic that it will be secure on the site in the medium and long term," Mr Gent said.
"The company speak positively about more export orders but, of course, the site has heard all that before and although the company say they are committed to the site, the workforce frankly believes nothing they tell them.
"If the prospective orders come to fruition, work could come through for some years yet and maintain the 950 strong-workforce that will still be at Brough, but there is little sense of security given the company's performance and behaviour throughout this redundancy process."
Mr Gent has described the latest redundancy process as the worst 21 months in the site's proud 100-year history.
"Even though the final number of compulsory redundancies was much lower than we anticipated, when we take into account the voluntary redundancies, the site has lost some 381 jobs," he said.
"The achievement was in securing work for the 400-plus mitigated positions – none of which would have been found without the great effort and support of the union, MPs and, of course, the membership.
"But even the mitigation of so many jobs feels like a hollow victory. For us it will go down as the worst 21 months in the site's history."
Of the 21 compulsory redundancies, four were skilled electricians, while 17 were skilled coppersmiths, tinsmiths and patternmakers.
Those who took voluntary redundancy, included five apprentices, 149 manuals, 170 staff, 34 executives and two full-time trade union representatives, including Mr Gent and Mr Cartwright, who have been largely credited with leading the successful union campaign to save jobs at the site.
They will both leave Brough in September with a reduced pension.
Mr Cartwright, who will leave Brough with more than 41 years service, said: "It's clear to see that by standing together as a site, using the unions, the MPs and the local media, decisions can be changed, therefore the campaign has been successful and worthwhile.
"We still have a site and while there is manufacturing taking place, our members will still have a job.
"The trade unions must continue the fight for Brough and we must ensure a future by securing more work going forward."
Chris Boardman, managing director of BAE Systems Military Air and Information, described the completion of the redundancy process at Brough as "the end of a challenging and emotional activity across the business".
"While anyone leaving the business via compulsory redundancy is regrettable, this represents a more positive position than we perhaps anticipated at the beginning of this process," he said.
"This was achieved through the business, trade unions and employee representatives working together."
