Under-threat BAE workers to lobby shareholders

WORKERS facing redundancy at defence giant BAE Systems will be lobbying shareholders at the company’s annual general meeting in May.

Union members voted to continue campaigning against more than 700 job losses at the East Yorkshire home of the Hawk jet, at Brough.

Ian Gent, staff union convenor at the Brough site, said he hoped the vast majority of the site would join them at the lobby on May 2, aimed at putting pressure on the board to reconsider.

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He said: “We had a mass meeting and there was an absolutely overwhelming show of hands for support for this. No one on this site is stupid – everybody knows there is work to be had. All we are saying is that it should be built at this factory, the home of the Hawk.”

Unite official Ian Waddell added: “BAE have made it clear they expect Brough workers to simply accept their fate and meekly hand over the tools to enable Hawk to be built elsewhere.

“There is no way we are going to allow that happen while the company refuses to talk to us meaningfully.

“We have already stated our determination to pursue legal action over the ending of consultation. Coupled with escalating costs of moving Hawk, surely the company should hit the pause button and reassess their decision.”

BAE said it would continue to “focus on reducing the number of redundancies and, as far as possible, explore all opportunities to mitigate the potential job losses.”

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