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Friday, July 06, 2012

capitalism- the meat grinder

 "Securing 1250 jobs through the new Centre of Excellence at Halls in Broxburn is fantastic news. Vion's investment in their new training centre is a major vote of confidence in the Scottish workforce and Scotland's economic future." Alex Salmond, 22 September 2011
The company then received funding of £1.495m from Scottish Enterprise and up to £500,000 from Skills Development Scotland.

Vion has warned that it could be forced to close its West Lothian plant, with the loss of 1,700 jobs. Bosses said the Hall's of Broxburn site had continued to record "unsustainable losses" - 5 July 2012 - less than a year later.

With 8,000 pigs a week currently being processed at the plant, which makes sausages, black pudding and haggis, it is the biggest pig processor in Scotland. VION UK is part of the Netherlands-based VION N.V., and currently employs almost 12,000 staff at 40 facilities across the country and is a major supporter of the UK farming industry, producing and processing beef, lamb, pork and chicken, as well as a range of sausages, cooked meatsVion's UK chairman Peter Barr said "There is significant over-capacity in the UK meat industry" Last month in a press release about future cost-cutting and stated "We are further optimizing our production, logistics, ICT and sales, thus also reducing costs. Unfortunately, this will not be possible without streamlining certain activities and making some redundancies."

Union leaders hit out at the sudden nature of the announcement earlier tonight and said staff were “shocked and angry”. Stewart Forrest said “The first question we want answered is why the company has waited until this 11th hour before engaging with its employees and their union. Usdaw was given no indication of the true seriousness of the situation and that is extremely regrettable and in my view totally unacceptable.”

Socialist Courier once again points to the worthless declarations from the SNP that an independent Scotland means very much to workers employed by companies who set business plans and commercial strategy, corporately, as a multi-national, outside a Scottish government's providence.

 And for those who hold out co-operatives as way to go VION is not a listed company and has one shareholder, the Dutch Zuidelijke Land- en Tuinbouworganisatie (ZLTO), an agricultural and horticultural association with some 18,000 members. Vion VION's turnover is €9.5 billion and the company employs 26,500 staff.

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