Union wants Government commitment to protect 700 Hucknall Rolls-Royce jobs

Workers’ futures remain unclear following the announcement this week that the Hucknall site-owning company ITP Aero had been sold for £1.5 billion to a consortium led by Bain Group.

Hucknall jobs have had no long-term guarantees since ITP Aero bought the site earlier this year, as the company was owned by Rolls-Royce which was already looking to sell it, meaning the Hucknall site also remained up for sale.

Speaking to the Dispatch, a union representative said: “We had a meeting with the management here and the Q&A we had with the ITP was very Spanish-centric and talked about protecting Spanish jobs, which is fair enough, its a Spanish company.

"But I expressed my disappointment that the UK government had not forced Rolls-Royce to put in any guarantees about jobs here.

"The owners said we were a big part of their plans going forward but it didn’t say that in the statements they put out.

"They said it didn’t say anything about plants in places like Mexico either but with respect, I don’t care about that, I care about Hucknall and the fact we have some highly-skilled well paid jobs here in the local community that are not guaranteed and if there is a squeeze in the future, it may well be us that get squeezed.

"So we need to get into negotiations about reciprocal job losses which is a million miles away right now as we’re recruiting, so we’re on a different curve, but you’ve got to look at the long-term picture.

"So I’ve written to Paul Scully MP, the business minister, to ask him if they have actually been in touch with Rolls-Royce to seek any sort of assurances about this deal concerning the skilled jobs here at Hucknall.

"I’m also going to write to Darren Henry, the Broxtowe MP, as he’s on the East Midlands Engineering Board, I believe, and see what he has to say.

"We were led to believe, by Unite, that some of these MPs have been talking in the background to Rolls-Royce about this, especially because of the defence products we make here but we’ve not heard anything back on that yet.”