Council to find ways to help redundant Honda workers (From Swindon Advertiser)

Council to find ways to help redundant Honda workers

11:00am Tuesday 22nd January 2013 in News

Workers leave the Honda plant after the announcement that 800 workers are to be made redundant

SWINDON Council is to investigate ways to help find new job or re-training opportunities for the 800 Honda workers who are set to be made redundant by the end of April.

Each member of the 3,000 workforce has recently received a letter from Honda warning that their job is at risk.

Roughly half of the 800 jobs are to go from the production line and the other half from the offices. Now Swindon Council has passed a cross-party motion, to bring a report to cabinet no later than March 20 and a report to council by April 11, setting out what Swindon and Wiltshire Local Enterprise Partnership and One Swindon partners can do to help the employees affected by the job losses.

The LEP is a business-led public-private partnership tasked with driving economic growth. One Swindon partners include other public agencies, as well as businesses, voluntary and community sector organisations.

Coun Rod Bluh, the council leader, said there was a task force meeting last week to discuss the job losses and he revealed that Honda had spoken to Jaguar Land Rover, which recently announced that it will add 800 jobs at its plant in Solihull.

He said the council and partners needed to work together to mitigate the worst effects of the job losses and ensure Swindon was in the best possible position to grow its local economy.

He said: “This is a real opportunity for all of us in this chamber to work together over the next five months to make whatever contribution we can make and really make sure Swindon keeps its economic base as strong as possible.”

Coun Jim Grant, the Labour group leader, said: “This is about our people and our town and we want to show support and solidarity to the workers affected by redundancy and also to Honda itself.”

Coun Stan Pajak, the Lib Dem group leader, said: “When something like this happens we all work together.”