The Communications Workers Union (CWU) has held a protest today over the proposed closure of consumer technology retailer Dixons Carphone’s Wednesbury repair and distribution centre.
The planned closure is expected to take effect in early 2016, at the cost of around 500 jobs - although affected workers have been offered alternative employment at another location.
Adrian Bailey, MP for West Bromwich West, asked David Cameron to intervene in the site’s closure during Prime Minister’s Questions last week (3 June).
Bailey said: “The fragility of our economic recovery in my constituency is demonstrated by the impending closure of Dixons Carphone in the area, with the loss of 500 jobs and £8 million to the local economy.
"Will the Prime Minister intervene to keep Wednesbury working—to save these jobs—or at the very least ensure that the company provides appropriate compensation and support for employees to secure alternative employment?”
Cameron said he would “look very closely at the case” and added: “Everything that Jobcentre plus can do to find employment for those people should be done”.
CWU’s general secretary Dave Ward said this was an unsatisfactory response. “Both the prime minister and Dixons Carphone should quickly rethink their priorities when it comes to these workers in Wednesbury," he said.
The retailer said the proposed closure is part of the ongoing integration process set into motion last year by the £3.8bn merger of Dixons and Carphone Warehouse, who each hold 50% of the new entity.
In a statement the company said an alternative site in Newark had been selected as the more beneficial to keep in operation, and that every Wednesbury worker would be offered a post there.
CWU said this, too, was unacceptable. The union’s Black Country & Worcester branch secretary Vicki Cornelius said: “For the company to say that people can keep their jobs is laughable. It’s simply not realistic for people up uproot their families and lives to move 90 miles away for a job that only pays about £17,000 a year.”
