Only two Land Rover workers have taken up the manufacturer’s offer of £10,000 per head to transfer from its West Midlands production plant to Merseyside, according to union officials.
The deal is an alternative to the voluntary redundancy package being offered to the 1,290 Solihull based workers who will be affected when production of Land Rover’s Freelander model is moved to Halewood this summer.
Don Hume, corporate affairs director for Jaguar/Land Rover, said: “Staff will be offered full relocation support, a £10,000 transfer payment and will be required to become a Jaguar Cars employee in every respect.”
But Andrew Dodgson, communications director at the Transport & General Workers’ Union, said only two people had expressed an interest in relocating so far, although he praised the overall redundancy offer.
Under the package, staff have been offered an ex-gratia payment equivalent to 1.5 weeks’ pay for every year of service plus compensation for ‘loss of office’ worth 12 weeks’ pay.
Also, employees over the age of 50 are being offered voluntary redundancy on a full pension – 15 years before many workers in the UK will qualify.
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A spokesman from Amicus also praised Land Rover for looking after its staff. “The redundancy package is excellent and probably a strong incentive for people not to take the 10,000 and relocate,” he said.
Land Rover admitted that it only expected a small number of employees to opt to move to Merseyside, despite describing the deal as “the best offered in the industry”.
