BAe Brough has excellant labour relations, is a profitable site and has an adaptable work force who have moved with the times. The Aerospace industry has shrunk and shrunk within this country, how long before the RAf will be buying Hawk 128s from India , they new home of the Hawk ?

Trouble is we had a right wing governent who came along and slashed our Air Force in the name of cuts. It did not take in account any ongoing operations or threats, it cut purely to save money, money it will now be paying out in unemployement and other benefits. Brough relied on this work The Harrier, Nimrod where sacrificed to save a pittance and we will still ahve to cough up mega bucks to replace the Nimrods because we can no longer patrol our sea's. Ex USN Orions are being touted as a stop gap before we have a serious incident with Hercules trying to save people in trouble. #

Surely one of the biggest tragedies of them all, billions wasted just to save the equivalent of pennies - the public will never know the real cost.

Hawk sub-assemblies are to be made in India and hawks will merely be assembled in this country.
Also Saudi Arabia will soon be purchasing some of the RAF's spanking new Hawks just so they can meet budgets with the MOD.

Well done Cameron.

The Unions failed to allow manufacturing industry to modernise? Now you are having a laugh.

If you persist in employing "lazy SOBs", then that says more about either your inability to select employees, your wage structure, your working conditions or more likely, all three.

Don't try and pin your shortcomings on the unions.

Now I suspect I already know the answer to this but I'm going to ask anyway: Have you ever considered initiating the principles of W Edwards Deming or 4th Generation Management?

I hope this gets resolved quickly. Speaking as somebody with experience, the threat of redundancy is often worst than the actual event - at least once it has happened you can accept it and begin moving on.

The only silver lining here (and its a very thin one) is that at least there is a all in it together situation. Redundancy shame and likewise guilt, however misplaced for those who get to stay can be mentally truly horrible. Hopefully some can band together and set up some innovative business ventures.

My true sympathy for all effected. For what its worth redundancy, although terrible for me was initally, the best thing that could happen. A month later I landed a dream job at a time I had felt that the prospects were hopeless.

And I make money off the backs of others.

Come on Dave, you do know them pesky unions had the audacity to push for a fiver an hour national minimum wage, much to the disdain of Jakes friends in high places.

Strewth!

We don't ever want them Netto shoppers getting anywhere near the doors of Marks & Sparks, do we now?

I'm loving this

Unfortunately, the country is full of people who believe the state owes them and it's why we're in the state we're in - that and the former government who spent to excess and would have us bankrupt by now if they'd stayed in power

I think you may have ever so slightly swallowed the tabloids pill.

Indeed he has - please enlighted us Jake as to how/ what your business is and how many you employ on I am sure minimum wage - Newsagents, Sweet shop,painter decorator?? - It is certainly not in the Hundreds/thousands I am sure.

And unfortunately its people like you who will then have a go about a man/women who has to claim from the State when he has lost his job through no fault of his own.

I have friends who work for BA and after been made redundant twice in the early 2000 as well as when i was younger, i do know only to well the feeling of despair and depression they will be feeling right now.
there is more than one single reason for the current situation but it must be pointed out tht the last labour Government has to take a large slice of the blame, they over spent on defence contracts over a number of years and left the MOD with a 38 billion black hole in the defence budget, two examples of such overspending were. An extra £2.7bn on the RAF's Typhoon fighter jets, after it was decided to buy 16 more aircraft to meet the UK's contractual obligations under the four-nation Eurofighter programme with Germany, Italy and Spain and £767m on the Royal Navy's two planned new aircraft carriers.

With regards to someone in an earlier post who blamed the cuts, they like many people dont appear to be able to grasp the extent of the current debt situation in the UK.
When Labour left power in 2010 it left behind a budget deficit of around 1 trillion pounds, approx about 71.3% of GDP and rising at an alarming rate, in fact it was second largest budget deficit of the G7 and the fourth highest of the 26 industrial countries .
Much of this was basicaly down to Gordon brown and his Govt borrowing and spending more than what the country was taking in tax revenues etc, something they were guilty of from the day they took office and also during their previous term in the seventies, if this had carried on as gordon Brown intended, had he remained in power, we would now probably be in the same boat as The USA and Italy who have recently lost their triple AAA ratings and face higher interest rates as a result.

No one likes to have less than what they have been used to in the past but the truth is we dont have any choice, including me, i currently run my own small retail busines and the future is uncertain, i have had to slash my margins considerably to stay in competition with the rest and its getting harder.
Its a hard world out there at the moment and it aint going to get much better for a while yet imo.