Jobs will be axed at an historic engineering firm whose new owners have announced they will split the company up, moving some production overseas.
Bloxwich Engineering Ltd went into administration last November and workers hoped its bursting order book would pave the way for it to be sold as a going concern.
But they were devastated when Birmingham-based Sonas bought the firm and revealed they are to split the company between sites in Birmingham and France. Most of the 100-strong workforce will lose their jobs.
It marks the end of an era for generations who have worked for the company which was established in 1915 as Bloxwich Lock & Stamping Company Ltd and first based at Bell Lane.
Sonas bosses told the workers in a crunch meeting yesterday that half of the company will move to Tyseley and half to France within six months of the official takeover on March 1.
They have learned that there are only “some” opportunities for workers in Birmingham.
When they took over the reins of the business last year, administrators Grant Thornton pledged to workers that they would try and sell the company as a going concern, citing its strong workforce and bursting orders book.
But it is now likely that most of the workers will be made redundant.
Today, Unite union official Caroline Crolley said that this was the worst possible news. She said: “This is a total kick in the teeth. This is not what we wanted. We wanted the workers to be taken on because this company was worth saving.”
Talks are ongoing at the site which has been sold for an undisclosed amount.
Sonas Group was launched in December 2006. The business employs 1,000 and has a turnover of £100 million with Renault among its main clients.
8 Comments
there will be no manufacturing at all soon in this country. how can we survive when we have to import all our goods. maybe thatchers england will prevail - service industry, sure we can all be swimming pool attendants, teachers, sell insurance or make billions as traders in the city…… i think not.
When solvent businesses go defunct because the ‘holding company’ decides to dump them… that’s horrible.
Short term gain, long term loss moving jobs abroad. The destruction of Britain at the hands of the Government. Make these Companies who outsource abroad pay extra taxes, make the pay for all the people who will be on the dole, unemployable because their skills are no longer required. To everyone else, stop buying goods that have been outsourced abroad, or companies in the service industry who have outsourced abroad. Let them see what the British people feel about the loss of jobs.
You can’t compete with cheap labour from overseas competition, especially those states that have even more disregard for worker rights than the government does here.
What annoys me is the manner in which skilled, hard-working English people are thrown on the scrap-heap. Those people are not offered incentives..all they are offered is new deal schemes and false promises. You will continue to see these kinds of stories until you get a government that cares about it’s own people instead of its own interests.
I work with some of the people at Bloxwich and i cant believe what is happening. England is on its way to being a nation of shopkeepers thats all we good for anymore.
I agree with comments about sending jobs overseas we have the same problem here in Australia.
All we seem to do is prop up the economies of China, Japan and the rest of Asia.
Where we has a strong manufacturing industry 40 years ago when I migrated from Walsall there is very little left.
Has anybody here actually read this artical. Production is moving to Birmingham and France, not Asia or the Far East. So the owners are not moving production for ‘cheap labour’ reasons.
It is a terrible shame for the workers at Bloxwhich who will loose their jobs, but Sonas already have production facilities in Tysley and France, so why take on the added expense of a new site. If they hadn’t bought Bloxwich Engineering then the whole operation would’ve closed, with the loss of all jobs.
On the flip side, it’s good news for the workers in Tysley, as the added work should secure jobs there for the forseable future.
The buyer has workforce it picked, sites of its own and preumably able to handle the orders itself.
Why should they take on a workforce they didn’t pick? Why should they keep an additional site open if its more efficient for them to use existing sites?
Companies don’t often exist for the benefit of the workers.
Oh, and while people may not want jobs to be done abroad, funny how they like the low priced goods from there……