Strike ballot over plant closure

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Workers at the Rolls-Royce factory on Merseyside are to be balloted for industrial action in their fight against the plant's closure.

On Tuesday the company confirmed the plant at Dunningsbridge Road in Bootle would shut in 2009 with the loss of more than 200 jobs.

Production will instead be moved to America, where to reduce costs.

Debbie Brannan, regional officer with the Unite union, said workers feel the 90-day consultation period was a sham.

Ms Brannan said: "They are obviously devastated and upset by it but they are also angry, because they believe this decision was taken months ago.

"They believe the plan they put forward to save the site was a possibility and hasn't been considered properly by Rolls-Royce so the union members on the site agreed that I would instigate an industrial action ballot.

"It is to show our strength really to say to the company that they may have made this decision to close but we think they're wrong."

'Severe blow'

She said the union would be speaking to local MPs to ask for support for their campaign.

"Tomorrow the company will announce what we believe to be record profits as part of that there is going to be some sort of payment to their shareholders.

"What the company need to realise is that the real shareholders are their workforce - and they have dealt them a severe blow."

The factory which makes turbines for the oil and gas industries, will shut at the start of next year.

The first redundancies are due in April.