Stop the coalition sacking 1,500 Disabled workers ! Send a message today.

Unite the Union (and other unions such as GMB representing workers in the Remploy factories, which provide work for mostly disabled workers) are campaigning against the appalling decision by Iain Duncan Smith to shut down 54 Remploy factories and throw 1,518 staff on the dole.

Len McCluskey, Unite General Secretary, writes:

"Dear Friend,

Sacking decent workers makes no sense.

In a shameful move, the Tory Work and Pensions Minister Iain Duncan Smith is trying to shut down 54 British factories and throw 1,518 hardworking people on to benefits. Even worse, these are Remploy factories – so the workers he wants sacked are mostly disabled.

Help us keep British factories open for business and stop this government putting disabled workers on the scrap heap.

 

Click here to send a message to Iain Duncan Smith, asking him to meet with Remploy workers. It won’t take you more than a minute to do – but it’s a minute that could save the jobs of over a thousand disabled people.

 

Shutting down Remploy shows just how heartless and arrogant this government is. In fact, Iain Duncan Smith told a Remploy worker to her face that he wanted to make her unemployed so he could give someone else a “proper job”. 

 

This is unjustified and nasty. As a union official I had responsibility for Remploy’s workers and I know firsthand that they absolutely do “proper jobs”. Remploy is a brilliant testimony to the British manufacturing industry and it provides real work for disabled people in this country – and we should be proud of it. 

 

I know too that Remploy is much more than a workplace to its staff. Steve Collins, a worker in North Staffs factory, told us that his job at Remploy "saved his life", offering him somewhere he can earn a dignified living, after years of bullying in mainstream employment. This is what Remploy means to its workers – and why we can’t just let it be destroyed.

 

Tell Iain Duncan Smith what you think of his decision to throw 1,518 hardworking disabled people on the scrap heap. Ask him now to save British factories and jobs.

 

Closing down our factories and forcing people on to benefits makes no economic sense at a time when more than two million people in this country are out of work.

 

With the full force of our members’ voices, we can put enough pressure on the government to save Remploy. Thank you for standing up for these workers."