More than 150 workers employed at a Merseyside factory which produces key parts for Jaguar Land Rover have voted overwhelmingly for strike action over planned job and pay cuts.
Earlier this week the ECHO revealed plans by International Automotive Components (IAC), based in Halewood, to make 87 redundancies and cut the pay of shift workers at the site with a reduction to just one shift for shop floor staff.
The US-owned company supplies parts to Jaguar Land Rover that are used for dashboards in their vehicles.
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Members of the Unite union have now recorded a 100% vote in favour of taking industrial action on a turnout of 90%. The union says this result underlines the major anger felt among the workforce at the company's plans.
Unite says the American-owned IAC brings in billions of pounds each year, with the company recording global revenues of £2.4 billion in 2021 - including £221 million from its UK operations.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “IAC is being entirely opportunistic. Its finances are more than healthy. It is clear these plans are an unnecessary money-grab against staff, put forward because they mistakenly think the workforce is vulnerable.
“Unite always defends our members’ jobs, pay and conditions and IAC’s workers have the full support of the union in taking strike action.”
Unite regional officer Mike Gaskell said: “Strikes will undoubtedly cause disruption to JLR’s production but that is entirely the fault of IAC for shamelessly attacking our members’ jobs and pay. The company needs to give cast iron guarantees that any redundancies will be voluntary and take the needless reduction in pay off the table."
Earlier this week, an IAC worker told the ECHO: "We found out about the changes about three weeks ago, once again they are mostly falling on the shop floor.
"They are taking us down from two shifts to one which means we will lose the shift premium we used to get. That will take us down from £16 to £13 per hour which isn't good when everything is costing more and we have mortgages to pay."
He added: "Everyone is pretty fed up, the atmosphere is not good."
The dates for strike action will be announced in the coming days.
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