Unite Tells BMW Heads, You Have Treated Your Workforce With Contempt - But There Will be No Further Sackings Next Week

• Wednesday February 18, 2009, 7:01 pm EST

LONDON, February 19 /PRNewswire/ -- Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of the UK's biggest union, Unite, has today (Thursday) written to the Chairman of BMW's Board of Management to protest in the strongest possible terms his union's "outrage" at the manner in which 330 BMW agency workers were summarily sacked earlier this week - and warned the German car company that there will be no further repeats of last Monday's disgraceful sackings.

BMW is seeking to sack a total of 850 agency workers in total at its Cowley plant, 330 of whom were dismissed one hour before their shift finished on Monday of this week. The balance, 520 workers, face the sack when they return to work this coming Monday.

However, Tony Woodley has warned BMW that Unite will not accept any further dismissals. Instead, Mr Woodley says that the company must sit down with the union as a matter of urgency to discuss saving jobs at the plant. Unite is also accusing BMW of abusing the agreement on agency labour at Cowley, taking advantage of the workers' lack of rights to exploit working men and women, throwing them to the dole without further expense to or effort by the company.

In his letter to Dr Norber Reithofer, Chairman of the BMW Management Board, Tony Woodley says:

"You have treated your workforce with utter contempt. The difficulties of the car industry globally are well known, but the manner in which BMW has sought to address the reduction of its volumes at the Cowley plant in the UK is nothing short of disgraceful. You would not treat a dog this way, never mind loyal and committed employees.

"The dismissal of the weekend shift, with many workers who have worked at Cowley for up to five years, with only one hour's notice, has to rank as the most outrageous form of dismissal that we have experienced in the car industry in the UK.

"You have exploited not only our agreement on the use of agency labour, but also more importantly, you have exploited ordinary men and women who deserve better treatment from an employer of your standing."

Tony Woodley goes on to say that Unite will not accept the dismissal of a further 520 agency workers when they return to work as expected on Monday, 23rd February. Many of these workers remain unclear as to whether or not they even have a job to go to on Monday as they have received no word from the company concerning its plans for them:

"Notwithstanding any announcements you may already have made to employees, permanent or agency, we do not expect you to confirm any dismissals until we have had proper negotiations about the situation."

Tony Woodley states that the agreement to allow the use of agency labour at the plant was "most certainly not to see the creation of second class citizens who do not have the entitlement to redundancy payments in spite of years of service.

"My members, be they permanent or agency, are workers with families and responsibilities, not some asset to be cast aside as cannon fodder."

Asserting that the company has been "secretive" with its plans to dismiss the workers, Tony Woodley is urging BMW to now change tack and instead work with Unite on ways to address the downturn and retain skilled workers:

"I not only speak for my members but I think for Britain, when I ask for a meeting with your company to find a more acceptable solution to what I appreciate is a difficult time for BMW and the industry."

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