‘I’d be worried if I was working at Michelin’s remaining UK factory’
Tyre giant Michelin has announced the shutting down of its Dundee site with the loss of 845 jobs. This week, Michael Alexander of the city’s Courier newspaper travelled to Ballymena to hear how the closure of its Michelin factory, which wound down complet
IT is a midweek Champions League football night in Charlie’s Bar on William Street in the centre of Ballymena.
The traditional hostelry is living up to its reputation as the “place to go” if we want to speak to former workers from the town’s recently-closed Michelin plant.
However, as soon as the predominantly Guinness-drinking men bantering at the bar learn we have travelled from Dundee, we become the centre of their attention.
And most are only too happy to share their experiences of working at Michelin and tell us why they are “not surprised” Dundee’s plant has been earmarked to close.
They also speak of 20 former colleagues who chose to relocate from Ballymena to Dundee — who now face the “devastation” of being made redundant again.
Ballymena, with a population of 29,000, is the eighth largest town in Northern Ireland.
Incorporating a big rural area, the largely unionist town used to host Ireland’s largest one-day agricultural show at the Ballymena Showgrounds.
During the latter half of the 20th century the town, like many other once prosperous industrial centres in Northern Ireland, experienced economic decline, which has accelerated since 2010.
Charlie’s proprietor Charlie Havelin (51) was hospitality manager at Ballymena’s Michelin Athletic Club — in the grounds of the factory — for 17 years before being made redundant and setting up his pub on October 1.
He said it is the “feeling” in Ballymena that the closure of its factory — announced in November 2015 and shut in August this year with the loss of 840 jobs — was used as the “blueprint” of how to close other factories.
“The feeling among ex-workers here is that the period of time they gave from their announcement to the actual closure in Ballymena was too long,” he said.
“So to see that in Dundee the closure date is 2020 — basically just over a year from the announcement — we feel they are kind of learning by their mistakes, that they have learned to make the process shorter. But it is like a domino effect. Burnley (which closed in 2002), Ballymena, Dundee — if I was working at the last remaining UK Michelin plant in Stoke I’d be very worried.”
Charlie said there had been “rumours for years” about the viability of the Ballymena Michelin plant amid concerns about high electricity prices.
However, the day the announcement came, it was still a “big shock”.
He was on a day off when his phone “started to go berserk” with colleagues telling him they had been called to a mass meeting.
He said the letter given to staff then and the letter given to staff in Dundee three years later was “almost identical”.
“I know three brothers who walked out the gates with their father that day — all employees dealt a devastating blow,” he said.
“There was a whole family suddenly having a hell of a good income taken and not knowing what they were going to do in two years’ time.
“There were a lot of families like that.”
Charlie was lucky to set up the pub after a brewery contact told him about the lease.
However, for the wider community he said it has been “devastating” given the closure of the Japanese-owned JTI Gallaher cigarette factory last October with the loss of 877 jobs and the building company Patton Group entering administration with the loss of 320 jobs a few years before that.
Ballymena-based coachbuilder Wrightbus continues being a major employer in the town with 1,560 staff and bought the 100acre JTI site in 2016.
However, the economy was dealt a further hammer blow this year when the company announced 200 redundancies, blaming market uncertainty for hitting new orders.
“Ballymena lost three of its main employers in the course of a few years,” he said.
“That’s why when you go down the town it is all charity shops, coffee shops and barbers, because no one has any disposable income.
“Drink and drugs are rife in the town, but they have always been there. It’ll be the same for Dundee.
“There’s the knock-on effect with subcontractors struggling. It is a common problem but this has made it worse.”
Charlie said at least 20 Ballymena families were given relocation packages to Dundee, with others going to Stoke and the Continent.
He understood they received an additional £25,000 over four years to relocate.
However, because Dundee-bound packages took people to 2020, some have now been left wondering if it was always in the mind of the company that Dundee would close — despite assurances.
Charlie added: “The best prospect for most young people now in Ballymena is the long road to Belfast because there are very few skilled jobs left. I hope there are better prospects for young people to stay in Dundee.”
However, it is hoped that the creation of a manufacturing hub at the former Michelin site will attract new businesses.
Courtesy of the Dundee Courier