JCB Factory Workers Vote to Reduce Hours to Save Jobs
Hundreds of factory workers at JCB’s Staffordshire, U.K., factories voted to work shorter hours for the next three months to avoid having the manufacturer reduce staff, according to various news reports from the U.K. The company announced last month that up to 290 factory positions might be eliminated because of softer demand in world construction markets, especially in China.
Members of the GMB union also voted in favor of a flexible working pattern that JCB and GMB proposed to save jobs. The pattern will operate for the next three months at JCB’s Rocester plant, as well as its Heavy Products unit in Uttoxeter, the JCB Cab Systems plant in Rugeley and JCB Transmissions in Wrexham.
Employees’ hours will drop from the company standard of 39 hours to 34 or higher for the next three months depending on production volumes.
“Our shop floor colleagues are to be applauded for their actions,” said JCB chief executive Graeme Macdonald. “JCB and the GMB were determined to do everything possible to avoid compulsory redundancies through a combination of voluntary redundancies, early retirements and flexible working. It highlights a great team spirit at JCB and also means we can retain some vitally important skills.”
JCB GMB Works Convenor Gordon Richardson referred to the ballot as a “magnanimous act which is in the spirit of the approaching festive season.”
In addition to China, where sales have dropped 47 percent in the first six months of 2015, sales fell 70 percent in Russia and 36 percent in Brazil.
About the Author
Michael Roth
Editor
Michael Roth has covered the equipment rental industry full time for RER since 1989 and has served as the magazine’s editor in chief since 1994. He has nearly 30 years experience as a professional journalist. Roth has visited hundreds of rental centers and industry manufacturers, written hundreds of feature stories for RER and thousands of news stories for the magazine and its electronic newsletter RER Reports. Roth has interviewed leading executives for most of the industry’s largest rental companies and manufacturers as well as hundreds of smaller independent companies. He has visited with and reported on rental companies and manufacturers in Europe, Central America and Asia as well as Mexico, Canada and the United States. Roth was co-founder of RER Reports, the industry’s first weekly newsletter, which began as a fax newsletter in 1996, and later became an online newsletter. Roth has spoken at conventions sponsored by the American Rental Association, Associated Equipment Distributors, California Rental Association and other industry events and has spoken before industry groups in several countries. He lives and works in Los Angeles when he’s not traveling to cover industry events.