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10 July, 2006
French materials producer Imerys has reneged on a commitment made two years ago to British workers. The promise, made in 2004 when the company moved some jobs from Southwest England to Brazil, guaranteed that 800 other jobs would remain.
However, in early July, Imerys dropped a proposed restructuring plan on all former English China Clay mining and manufacturing operations, which Imerys bought in 1999, near Cornwall and Devon, telling the communities that all 800 jobs would be gone and production will move to Brazil by 2008. With Imerys being the region’s largest private employer, such a scenario would be fatal to the economic lifeblood of the Southwest. The ICEM will again join with UK’s Transport & General Workers’ Union (TGWU), and two other UK trade unions representing Imerys workers, to resist the company’s destructive restructuring plan.
Early in 2005, Cornwall and Devon workers, together with their unions, fiercely resisted Imerys insistence on closing the final pension scheme and downgrading benefit levels for existing workers and retirees. That fight was waged to retain the spending power that thousands of workers and retirees had rightfully earned due to years on the job. Now the fight is survival.
Since the proposed plan was uncovered just a week ago, TGWU has already organised a general stewards’ meeting and demanded from Imerys an immediate and preliminary meeting. In addition, an MP from the area, Matthew Taylor, representing Truro and St Austell, has scheduled an emergency debate on the economic consequences to the region in Parliament tomorrow, 11 July.