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Old 13th May 2019, 23:54   #51
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My apprenticeship was served at Thor Tools (Stewart-Warner) at West Chirton industrial estate South.

Clicking on this LINK takes you to the satellite view of the former site of the factory which ran the full length of Exmouth Road, and down the majority of Bournemouth Road, and was bordered by Portsmouth Road.

The company was formerly known as the Armstrong Whitworth Pneumatic tool company, history can be found HERE



My workshop was known as the FoMoCo room, primarily as the original big customer was Ford, although every main motor vehicle manufacturer was catered for.

At the time I began work there were 900 people employed on the site, almost all of which were highly skilled, with a smattering of semi skilled in the fitting shop.

The American parent company, Stewart Warner was purchased in 1987 by BTR, and the asset stripping of the company began.

By the time I received my redundancy notice in 1991, there were less than 100 employees on site.

So what is the point of this trip down memory lane? well this was a local company with an international owner, under who's ownership was at the time returning an annual pretax profit in the late 1980's in excess of 15 million, and had existed on the same site since the 1930's providing good quality secure employment

So what has this been replaced with? nothing, the site has long since been levelled, and is a mess of scrub.........if I drive down the length of Exmouth Road, I can still picture in my minds eye, the machine shop, the drawing office, the payroll office, where the entire factory workforce lined up on a Friday afternoon, to receive their weeks pay in a brown envelope, then down Bournemouth Road where the fitting shop was, the testing room, and finally my workshop.

Gone forever a facility that made things to sell both in the UK, and globally, the combined skill and knowledge of many generations.

Therein lies the problem, the goose which laid the golden eggs was killed to satisfy the greed of the BTR hatchet men and the short term goal of satisfying the soft hands of the shareholders, who had never experienced real creativity.

Every now and again, I will bump into a former employee of this operation, and it goes without saying, names some half forgotten will roll off the tongue and once again I will become slightly misty eyed.

Is there a point to this trip down memory lane? I don't suppose there is, but when I think of the people I met at the many motor manufacturing facilities around the UK and beyond in that former life, and the complete waste of all of that skill it saddens me.

So if I'm asked if I'm bitter about alien ownership of British industry, sold off in a spiv like fashion, then the answer is yes.........and listening to the reports of the British economy measured in retail performance, housing prices, and such, makes my blood boil.

Brian
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Old 14th May 2019, 07:45   #52
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It's a sad fact that this happened all over the UK. Not always because the business was a bad one but individuals with money and power had personal goals which meant scarificing people along the way.
I was employed by Delta Tubes in the 80's. Profit making with a good order book. Glynwed International bought the business, all 3 sites and promptly closed us down. Only wanted the order book.
Claire Short (remember her?) was the local MP and was furious that a profit making manufacturer could simply be closed and 600 jobs lost.
Personally it gave me the opportunity to get a better job or at least made me look harder but that's not the point. I could still be there today looking forward to retirement. Instead I had 3 jobs in 10 years before changing career and being employed for 25 years in logistics. Makes you wonder how many good firms and good jobs were lost over the years? No political opinion on this one as this is not a political forum.
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Old 14th May 2019, 08:22   #53
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Many manufactures are losing skilled workers, many skills have been lost and manufactures can't find qualified people with the proper skills who want to work in today's UK no incentive society.

We only have ourselves to blame, us lazy Brits that no manufacture wants to employ, Britain’s manufacturing sector is changing beyond all recognition I'm afraid.
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Old 14th May 2019, 10:12   #54
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Quote:
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Many manufactures are losing skilled workers, many skills have been lost and manufactures can't find qualified people with the proper skills who want to work in today's UK no incentive society.

We only have ourselves to blame, us lazy Brits that no manufacture wants to employ, Britain’s manufacturing sector is changing beyond all recognition I'm afraid.

I would put this differently.

We have put so many skilled people into the non-employed pool due to a lack of quality jobs with quality rewards that we are in danger of losing key skills.

There is no skills shortage in the UK - only a skilled job shortage. We have huge numbers of skilled/educated people working in lower skilled roles e.g. engineers working in retail as a result.
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Old 14th May 2019, 11:43   #55
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I would put this differently.

We have put so many skilled people into the non-employed pool due to a lack of quality jobs with quality rewards that we are in danger of losing key skills.

There is no skills shortage in the UK - only a skilled job shortage. We have huge numbers of skilled/educated people working in lower skilled roles e.g. engineers working in retail as a result.
I hear what you say, but you only have to look at the NHS, the specialised doctors/consultants who come from abroad, without them where would we be?

It depends which side of the table you are sitting, are you a manufacturer/employer, or a skilled or non skilled employee/non employed?
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Old 14th May 2019, 12:23   #56
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Many UK employers will say the jobs are here to be taken, but there is a lack of skilled workers in Britain.

The non skilled jobs, manufacturers/employers find the British workers to be work-shy. The jobs are there in abundance, but the stigma that surrounds British workers is still rife in today's society.

I've seen in for myself many times being a department manager, the British workforce isn't like in used to be.
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Old 14th May 2019, 12:36   #57
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Quote:
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I hear what you say, but you only have to look at the NHS, the specialised doctors/consultants who come from abroad, without them where would we be?

It depends which side of the table you are sitting, are you a manufacturer/employer, or a skilled or non skilled employee/non employed?
Where I work we would grind to a halt without people from Eastern Europe willing to work hard, work well and be incredibly flexible. No indigenous Brits anywhere to be seen I'm afraid.
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Old 14th May 2019, 12:45   #58
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dallas View Post
I hear what you say, but you only have to look at the NHS, the specialised doctors/consultants who come from abroad, without them where would we be?

It depends which side of the table you are sitting, are you a manufacturer/employer, or a skilled or non skilled employee/non employed?
I am actually from the former group in that until taking early (voluntary) retirement last August, I recruited and lead teams of top-end professional designers, developers, project mangers etc. during a fruitful 35+ year career. The engineers I have worked with have been of the highest calibre that you will fnd anywhere in the world. I also have extensive contacts in industry.

The "lack of skill availability" is a common excuse used to justify exporting jobs and poor business performance across the UK. It gives job exporting in order to employ offshore cheap labour a more acceptable face.

As for the medical profession, one needs to look at why so few youngsters are going into medicine to become doctors and nurses - it is by design through raising the entry requirements so high that very few are taken on the higher-education programmes. This is driven by budgets as opposed to inherent skills issues.
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Old 14th May 2019, 12:57   #59
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Maybe so but the ones who have come here to work are polite, friendly, never late for work etc etc. A joy to work with. The sad bit is that there isn't anyone who was born here who has these types of values. Personally I welcome each and every person to come over here with the attitude of the ones we have working. There are a benefit to us and a positive good.
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Old 14th May 2019, 14:09   #60
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All successful ventures that become "Empires" have only one way to go when they reach full capacity. The leaders of the empires become greedy and lazy and they exhaust the "slaves", then the empire fails and falls. History will eventually repeat itself, assuming that there is still a world to exploit!
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