ANDOVER TRADE unions have hailed as a major victory news that tea-maker Twinings has been denied the £10 million EU grant it sought to help it relocate production to Poland and exploit cheap labour at the expense of 400 jobs axed in Andover and North Shields
Handing a massive sum of taxpayers’ money to Twinings would have been a “slap in the face” to loyal workers made redundant by the ABF subsidiary and “a completely immoral use of public money”, Andover Trades Union Council said today.
Andover TUC President and former Twinings USDAW convenor Pete Millward said:
“Twinings turned its back on the massive contribution made by its loyal workforce to its financial success and chose to chase cheap labour overseas, but our campaign to stop that move being subsidised by taxpayers has finally paid off and this is fantastic news.
“There is no doubt that Twinings would have got away with this had we not campaigned so long and hard to expose it, and I hope that it will now be far harder for employers to dump UK workers and abuse EU funding in this way.
“I am still gutted that Twinings has axed 400 jobs, including my own, but I am proud to say that we stopped them fleecing the taxpayer in order to do it.
ATUC secretary Derek Kotz said:
“It would have added insult to injury if Twinings workers’ taxes had been used to help the employer that dumped them to exploit labour that is paid a quarter of the union-negotiated rates here in Andover.
“EU funding is supposed to be there to encourage new investment, but Twinings’ application was a cynical and immoral attempt to line its shareholders’ pockets with public cash while boosting its already huge profits with cheap labour.
“We need to say a big thank-you for the help we received from Labour MEP Peter Skinner and, more recently, from Green MEP Keith Taylor.
“That stands in stark contrast to our MP George Young, who said when the job cuts were announced that the workforce needed be more competitive – perhaps he thinks wages in Andover are not low enough already.”
This is fantastic news. You have to realise this really proves the value and worth of a well organised and hard fought campaign.
I have no doubt in my mind that if it was not for the fact that we had kept this not only in the public eye, but also live in Government and the eye of the European Parliament Twinings would have got this grant without any body knowing.
To put this into perspective Twinings had allowed or budgeted for £37 million pounds on this RELOCATION.
Today it was found that £10.5 Million was denied them. Twinings had applied for a grant European Regional Development Fund (E.R.D.F.) to the tune of £10.5 Million so that they could relocate. After two years of campaigning we have a result.
This is a huge victory for the workers of Twinings and those that campaigned around this hugely important issue and really goes to show the importance of well organised, well planned and well executed campaign.
I am not so good at maths but would suggest that we must have stopped Twining claiming from the tax payer about 26% of thier budget monies for this project, so well done to all of those involved.
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Brilliant work by all concerned and especially Pete /Dell and Sarah who I know have worked tirelessly on the whole campaign. Wish you could have have seen the smiling faces at Twinings when we heard the news !It reminded me of the day when a certain manager was taken ill !