WORKERS with disabilities whose Stirling factory closed under the Con-Dems’ Remploy cuts will head back to work today after a new firm offered to take them on.

The city’s disabled community was left reeling last summer after Remploy managers shut the Causewayhead factory’s doors as part of plans by Tory disabilities minister Maria Miller to dismantle the entire Remploy network.
 
But SNP ministers celebrated yesterday as they announced the rehiring of 26 former Remploy workers for the new Haven PTS textile factory, which has won a three-year contract producing nurses’ uniforms for Scotland’s NHS.

Visiting Health Secretary Alex Neil told reporters yesterday he was “delighted” by the deal, while Enterprise Minister Fergus Ewing said the government’s Remploy stakeholders group had worked “very hard to mitigate the effects of the UK government closure.”

Former GMB union shop steward Phil Brannan slammed Remploy bosses, saying they deserved “no credit” for the Scottish government’s work.

Mr Brannan said he was pleased to see some people back in work, but the Remploy closures had cost the jobs of 250 people in Scotland alone.

“If you add in all the factories [in Scotland], the 26 make up about nine per cent of those who’ve lost their jobs — it’s not exactly a big boost to employment.

The closures, announced in 2012, saw Westminster’s Con-Dem coalition scrap all 54 of the state-owned company’s centres across Britain, including nine in Scotland, with the loss of more than 1,700 jobs.

The shops had guaranteed stable employment for people with disabilities ranging from manufacturing to clerical work.

rorym@peoples-press.com