More than 150 workers at a North Lincolnshire steel firm are taking an extended Christmas break to help their employer stay in business.
Staff at Caparo Merchant Bar (CMB) in Scunthorpe have agreed to take a longer, partly-unpaid, holiday over the Christmas and new year period.
Workers are being supported by the Community Trade Union in an effort to help the company.
The move aims to ease the company's wage bill in the process.
Full story at BBC News
from the Liverpoolecho , article by Neil Hodgson
VAUXHALL’S Ellesmere Port plant could be closed down if its parent company General Motors does not get Government support, the company warned today.
GM Europe president Carl-Peter Forster, speaking at the Geneva Motor Show, said the slump in car sales meant the company would be left with little choice but to consider plant closures if it was not given state aid.
Vauxhall employs more than 2,000 people in Ellesmere Port. The plant is set to start building the new Astra in September.
Mr Forster told Sky News: "We are very lean in the UK, in Ellesmere Port, same in Luton.
"Obviously the next step would be the complete closure.
"Obviously that's what we try and avoid. But if we don’t get support from the Government we will have to close down."
The German government has already signaled it may support GM’s German business Opel.
Corus has become the first leading UK industrial company to find itself caught by the reduction of cover to its suppliers by one of the world’s largest credit insurers.
Euler Hermes said it was reducing the amount of cover it was willing to write for suppliers of the country’s largest steelmaker as a result of a fall in global demand for steel. This cover is written against the risk of Corus not paying its bills.
Euler Hermes said: “We have reduced our exposure following the well-documented reduction in needs due to reduced activity levels and a collapse in prices. This has been happening across the whole sector.”
The reduction of the credit cover on Corus, will mean that some suppliers will be unable to arrange any cover at all on the steel giant.
Whilst this is the first report we have seen in the national press about credit insurance, we have been aware for some time that steel suppliers generally have been having difficulty arranging credit insurance to cover their sales. Insurance was withdrawn at the beginning of the year for three of the largest automotive manufacturers, and successively for many of their suppliers.
For some years now many steel stockholders and service centres would not offer credit to companies on whom they could not arrange insurance. Most however now find themselves in the situation where if they only deal with companies they can insure, then they no longer have a business.
It's another case of the financial sector raising barriers to business.
France on Wednesday fiercely defended its plan to pump almost nine billion euros into its struggling carmakers after EU countries labeled it protectionist and called a crisis summit.
President Nicolas Sarkozy announced plans to lend PSA Peugeot Citroen and Renault three billion euros (3.9 billion dollars) each on top of other measures in exchange for a promise not to shut French plants or sack French workers.
Speaking in Kuwait City during a tour of Gulf states, Sarkozy said the plan had "nothing to do with protectionism" and that other European governments were welcome to put up funds to keep French plants in their markets.
"One million cars were built elsewhere than in France in three years," Sarkozy told a news conference. "It is my responsibility to keep jobs in France."
The European Commission, which has yet to give the loan its approval, warned on Tuesday that the plan might break European Union laws against protectionism, amid sniping from the Czech Republic, Slovakia and German industry.
The French manufacturer Peugeot closed their UK manufacturing facility back in 2007, whilst they started to build in lower cost plants in Eastern Europe. At the time of closure the UK operation was already more efficient than its French counterparts. Now at a time when when Peugeot Citroen are announcing record losses and sweeping job cuts, it would seem the French Government is offering financial support as long as production in France is maintained. This would appear to "fly in the face" of the European ideal, or even break European Laws.
France, along with Germany have long been the bearers of the European banner, whilst countries like the UK have been criticised for their lack of European zeal. It is amazing how pragmatism can overtake idealism in the face of crisis. I think the French Government will have to be a little more cautious in future about their claimed "European credentials".
Along with the USA's "buy American" campaign, and recent wildcat strikes in the UK over foreign workers, we could be seeing the start of a new phase of International protectionism.
I don't normally do "political" stuff, but on a day when Corus announced painful job cuts in the steel industry which will put 2,500 thousand men out of work, with little prospect of employment, it makes me sick to read of the allegations against Lord Taylor.
For the benefit of overseas readers, Lord Taylor is a Labour peer, the Labour party traditionally being the party of the working man. He allegedly offered to assist "undercover" Times reporters acting as representatives of overseas businesses in amending UK legislation to help their prospects in return for a cash.
It is even claimed that he boasted that some companies pay him as much as £100,000 a year to act as a fixer, adding: "That's cheap for what I do for them."
Today many men and women with mortgages and families face the prospect of unemployment, having seen the Government apparently rescue rich city bankers and defend corrupt and wealthy individuals.
Whilst I am not suggesting a "bail out" of industries owned by wealthy foreign individuals, or "propping up" terminal businesses I am calling for a return to supporting the manufacturing base and innovation of our engineers and entrepreneurs to return the UK to be a productive and self sufficient economy again.
£99,999 would support a few families for while, or help a profitable business or two through difficult times, and I will throw in the last £1.00 for Lord Taylor's retirement party.
Peers apologise, but deny wrongdoing, as Sunday Times releases audio - Times Online
