A MAJOR demonstration opposing the government's plan to award the Thameslink rolling stock contract to Siemens is set to go ahead in Derby on Saturday, with organisers predicting that thousands of people will take part.
A separate row has ignited after an invitation to Bombardier's UK chief to accompany the prime minister on a trade visit to South Africa was withdrawn.
The protest in Derby is being led by four unions – RMT, UNITE, TSSA and GMB – who are calling for a rethink over the government's decision to have some 1,200 vehicles for the Thameslink Programme built in Germany.
Bombardier had been planning to make its works at Litchurch Lane in Derby 'a global centre of excellence' for the construction of aluminium-bodied rolling stock had it won the Thameslink order, which is believed to be worth at least £1.4 billion.
As things stand, the award may have doomed the last train-building plant in Britain, and supporters of Bombardier are arguing that although the decision to choose Siemens may create up to 2,000 jobs, mainly in the north east of England, it is also likely to endanger up to 20,000 jobs at Bombardier and its related supply chain in the East Midlands.
The transport secretary Philip Hammond has maintained that the terms of the competition had been decided by the previous government, and under those terms of reference there had been no choice but to choose Siemens.
Bombardier has already announced that it is to shed just over 1,400 jobs at Litchurch Lane, although the debate has been complicated by claims that the company was planning some reductions in any case. However, these would have apparently affected only temporary contract staff, but the cuts actually announced also envisage the loss of more than 400 permanent staff, whose skills may now be lost to the rail engineering industry.
A delegation from Derby has already visited the global HQ of Bombardier Transportation in Berlin, and is now expecting to have an early meeting with the prime minister, who is currently in Africa but is cutting short his visit because of the News International phone hacking crisis.
One casualty of this timetable change has been the abandonment of plans to show him Gautrains running in South Africa. These Electrostar-based trains were fabricated and partly built in Derby. Bombardier's UK chief Colin Walton had been expected to accompany Mr Cameron, but was told just before the official party's departure that his invitation had been withdrawn.
This has attracted fresh criticism of the government, with Mark Young of UNITE saying: “Cameron stabbed Bombardier’s UK workforce in the back. Now it looks like he’s trying to avoid the embarrassment of being seen with their boss.”
Ironically, the Bombardier plant is very busy at the moment, but most of its current construction contracts will be completed soon. The only work outstanding after this year will be the construction of the rest of the S-stock subsurface trains for London Underground, but even this major order will be completed by 2014, after which Litchurch Lane currently has no further work at all.
The company has started a 90-day consultation period over the job losses.