The Workers Party of Britain deplores plans by bus maker Alexander Dennis (ADL) to lay off as many as 650 of its 2,500 British workers in Guildford, Scarborough and Falkirk as part of a profit-driven restructuring exercise by Canadian parent company NFI Group.
Crucial decisions on the future of British bus manufacture should not be dictated by some short-term cost-cutting exercise masterminded in a boardroom on some other continent.
The government has promised a £3bn plan to get 4,000 new green buses on British roads, so it makes no sense to be shedding jobs in bus manufacture.
The Workers Party of Britain supports whatever measures ADL workers take to resist this attack on jobs. We welcome Unite’s suggestion that the government should put its money where its mouth is, buy buses direct from the manufacturers and then rent them out to bus operators.
This could be a first step on the road to a fully-integrated public transport system, with the manufacture and operation of buses coming under a national plan based on public need, not private profit.