imlach

Rover - yes, not great news. No-one wants to put someone out of a job.

However, it is a private company. It is not a goverment funded business.

I, and many on here, have been through redundancy. Our site had >500 redundancies in one go, and it is a small site. 10% of the Rover situation. Along the road, Motorola had 3000 redundancies. Not far off the Rover situation. Both had knock on effects on local small businesses that supplied packaging, PCBs, components, etc. Bet you can't remember that on the news. No-one expected the goverment to come and help us pay our mortgages or help feed our children.

However, WHY OH WHY do these Rover workers expect the RIGHT to goverment help with mortgages, and good grief, CAR LOANS!!!

...and on C4 News, one even said "Yes, they should have had the redundancies 5 years ago, because we'd all have new jobs by now". DOH! How stupid can you be? Come back in 5 years, and I suspect today's redundant will be in new employment too.......

I sympathise with redundancy as it's not pleasant, but PLEASE some reality please Rover workers.

Markus

I totally agree! There is sadness for them, but why on earth should they get special treatment over other people who have been made redundant. Ok, so it's a lot of people getting chopped in one-hit, but even still, is there not a welfare system in place to pay out unemployment benefits? Oh, there is? Well, use that then, don't try and force the government to pay out more of *our* money.

CRAIGFIN

I have sympathy for the workers but not for the company. If you sell $hite products that people don't want then you won't survive. Lets face it.....Rover's are very poor cars.

imlach

Another thing. How many people live in the UK? 55 million?

5000 redundant is under 0.01% of the population. TINY! Admittedly not 0.01% of the working population, but still tiny. In other words, for 1 Rover worker in this country, there are 9,999 people with jobs outwith Rover. Sounds like an opportunity to find work in another company to me.

You'd think they'd made 20% of the working population redundant they way Labour are splashing out state aid.

Neil Smalley

It's called buying an election using public money.

Petem95

It is shocking that Labour are prepared to throw 150million of taxpayers money at the issue just to secure Labour votes over the situation. Noway that would happen if there wasnt an election coming up.

imlach

To be fair, Tony is dammed if he does, and dammed if he doesn't on this one.....

No state aid, people don't vote for him.
Give state aid, people get annoyed at him throwing public money at it and don't vote for him.

Lose, lose.

ChungsterSTI

I can't even believe SAIC THOUGHT about buying the company or even getting involved with them!

The worse company going ever....sound business logic? You have a 10 year old product that u "re-invent" by chavving it up MaxP stylee. And the latest new product you released? That City Rover thingy....have they sold more than a thousand of those?

Sound business logic means u supply a product that the public wants at a fair price that also allows u to make a profit.

THEY'RE LOSING £20-£25M A MONTH FOR F*CKS SAKE. WHAT SORT OF A COMPANY IS THAT??

Those directos knew what they were doing...milk the cash flow of the company as much as they can via big phat salaries and a £12m pension contribution that no one knows about.

They are the ones that have gained out of this. Did they give a monkeys about Rover? I don't think so.

pslewis

Of course, Rover waited until the Election was announced to try and force a rescue package!!

And of course, Labour HAS to step in and bail them out .... to do nothing would be suicide!!

Its only a promise of money ...... don't worry, when Labour get in it will vanish right up the Tories backside

This will only cost the taxpayer the amount of money it takes to gain power .... stop getting concerned

Before you say anything against Labour ............ all the parties would do the SAME!

Pete

Chip

No they would'nt.Any goverment worth their salt would have the ***** not to support a company that has and will continue to lose millions of pounds month after month.

Thats why Maggie shut the mines. Dont know whether youve noticed but the UK uses very little coal compared to 30, 40 50 years ago. So why keep on producing it.

Same with Rover.Unions ran it for too long (Red Robbo), workers out on strike at every opportunity,very poor car sales, lack of investment,no new products at all.

Shut it down.Yes it'll hurt a lot of people but sometimes you just have to move on.


Chip

bluto22b

Stop talking bull$hit to$$er

Chip

I see theyre calling for it to be nationalised.What a bloody joke that would be.

Chip

bluto22b

Precisely Chip!

Vegescoob

Don't "they" say "the old jokes are the best jokes"?

In this case on us.

Mr Scoob

I like many others have been made redundant in the past. There was no hand out of public money for me or my colleagues. Apparently Rover workers are going to get £150m of our money, it is an absolute disgrace. Labour might gain the votes or 6000 Rover workers but will hopefully lose many more.

chris's scooby

What a total waste of tax payers money.

The_Gza

Entirely agree - my brother was one of those affected by the Motorola redundancies you mention and he certainly didn't expect the government to help him out. The whole situation is certainly sad, but no worse than many other people face day in, day out across the rest of the UK. And guess what, they just have to get on with it like the rest of us. Harsh - but fair unfortunately.

fast bloke

Yeah - I think the only answer is to look ahead, stop replacing industry jobs with silly service jobs and make some efort to build an economy that can sustain manufacturing beyond the election.... hmmm.... on second thoughts, that would require some effort, so lets stick with 150 million quids worth of 'retraining' :liar:

David Lock

I know they wouldn't do it but it would be interesting if HMG said "OK boys we'll match whatever amount the Directors move across from their £40m pension pot into the workers empty pension fund". DL

Leslie

Interesting to see PSL is now showing his true NL colours. According to him its all ok to lie and cheat your way to winning an election now as well as using tax payer's money.

Bit like postal voting really, especially in Brum, but according to PSL's beliefs, no problem as long as it is to regain power!

Does the end really justify the means? and must we now accept a world run by deceit.

Les

ADP

its ****, but I too have been made redundant so I know how it feels............but...........it wasnt totally unexpected was it? Did none of the workers start to think " hang on this place isnt doing so well, maybe I should put a bit aside - or get another job" I know its hard to do that when you are in that situation - 150 million quid wont go very far, but it could have built a few new schools for sure........