Bringing outsourced work back to BAE Brough 'could save 100 jobs'

UNION bosses at BAE Systems in Brough have identified more than 100 jobs they believe the company should save, the Mail can reveal.

Ian Gent, full-time staffs union convenor at the site, says work for more than 100 people has been subcontracted out to the company’s supply chain.

Now, he claims BAE Systems has a “moral duty” to bring that work back in-house to save jobs at the site, where 845 workers have been earmarked for redundancy.

Mr Gent said: “The campaign is now about compelling the company to do absolutely everything it can to mitigate the job losses, which should involve the recovery of subcontract work and help to get a third party interested in taking over the site.

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“There has been a lot of rhetoric over the past few days about what they will do to help the workforce but now is the time to turn that into something more tangible.”

Detailed small works, including the creation of brackets and small assembly connected with the Hawk build, has been subcontracted out to smaller firms – in some cases, over several years.

This was because there was not the capacity to do the work at the Brough site when it was in its heyday.

The Mail understands that BAE’s sites at Warton and Samlesbury, in Lancashire, are also unlikely to have the capacity to do the work when they take over Hawk manufacturing in the future – meaning it will stay under subcontract.

But Mr Gent believes the company has a moral responsibility to move that work to Brough to help save jobs – even if it costs the company more money.

“This is all work that has been done on-site before,” Mr Gent said. “So, there is no reason why it could not be brought back in-house. There is a moral value to this and our workers feel BAE owes them more than they have delivered during this process.

“The company has corporate and social responsibilities and so needs to be seen to act in a moral way in contrast to the shabby treatment our workforce has had to endure for the past eight months since the redundancies were announced in September.”

Roy Cartwright, full-time works union convenor at the site, said: “We know there is room for some of this work in the proposed new site footprint but we will be pushing the company to expand the footprint in order to fit all of the work and save more of our members’ jobs.”

So far, just 54 technical and engineering posts have been saved at Brough. Taking into account workers who have already left the company to seek employment elsewhere, 688 jobs are still under threat.

The company has said about 100 jobs will be made available to the Brough workforce at their Warton and Samlesbury sites “in the event of a Hawk order.”

Yesterday, reports said BAE Systems is close to securing the £500 million deal with Saudi Arabia for 30 Hawk training aircraft, which is expected to be completed within the next few months.