Meccano women closure
Woman Worker1980 1980-02-01Read it in the scan (PDF), scan page 1 →
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In the best traditions of old "family" firms, Meccano Ltd of Liverpool sacked their entire workforce on November 30 1979.
This staunch supporter of "law and order Tories" chose to ignore a particular bit of legislation which they didn't like and refused to give the statutory 90 days notice of redundancy. They showed the workforce that the only "family" they were interested in was the family of capitalism and big business, not the men, women and children who relied on Meccano for their weekly income.
Their excuse for the closure was the claim that the factory had made a loss of £920,000 in the last six months. But this was dwarfed by the fact that over £1 million in interest payments had been made to the banks in the same period, and £2 million in grants had been swallowed by the parent company, Airfix.
The workforce was justifiably sceptical and demanded the books be opened to them for proof.
The managing director of Meccano, a mg of sm Ming the aron at and Mar loose belonging to Airfix at Sunbury.
The Meccano factory at Liverpool was the last remaining unionsed plant in the group. Could it be more than coincidence that McNeice was moved to Merseyside to preside over its closure?
- The workforce however didn't take the news lying down. Shocked at being given half an hour's notice that they, too, were to join Merseyside's massive dole queue, they began an immediate sit-in.
Continued
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