Grown men are weeping on the production line in town that lives and breathes Honda
AT Honda’s factory in Swindon, Andy Foster sums up the pain of a community forged on the assembly lines. “We’re all like a family,” says Andy, who has been building cars for two decades. “We live and breathe Honda.”
Again and again, workers use one word to describe the news that the factory will close. Devastating.
“A few of my friends were on the production line in tears yesterday. It’s absolutely devastating,” Andy, 55, says. “It’s the final nail in the coffin for this town. It’s our whole lives and they’ve just come crashing down.
“It was a job for life when I started, and now what are people going to do? I have worked there for 20 years – it’s my whole life.”
Paddy Brennan, 53, a father-of-five, and his son, Ashley, 24, both work at the site. Their family will lose two key wages when Honda shuts in 2021.
“For Ashley, this is not a way to start his career,” says Paddy, the Unite union convenor at the plant, who has worked there 25 years.
“He left a well-paid job to go to Honda. And now they have betrayed him. They’ve used us and now they just want to leave. It’s absolutely devastating. Where does it all end?
“We have seen grown men crying on the production line. There is an entire generational impact, families have been affected. A husband and his wife work there, and she has just found out she is pregnant. It’s not just one person affected is it? The strain isn’t on one person. They’ve just taken on a mortgage – this could leave families on the streets.”
Anyone who has visited the former coalfield towns of the UK knows what is at stake for places like Swindon, Sunderland, Derby and Birmingham, where the car industry has announced closures. In Swindon, where 55% voted leave, workers are divided over whether it’s Brexit or the Government’s shambolic handling of it that’s tipped Honda’s decision over the line.
For Swindon, the devastating impact of the factory closure goes well beyond the 3,500 jobs at Honda. The company has admitted another MEETING Greg Clark 3,500 jobs are at risk in the supply chain, but local suppliers think it will be even more.
Honda isn’t just one of the biggest employers in Swindon, but in the whole of the South West of England stretching into Wales. It produces 147,000 Honda Civics a year – around a tenth of total UK vehicle production. In nearby Gloucester, 50% of G-TEM’s £107million revenue comes from supplying Honda with car parts. A taskforce meeting held with Business Secretary Greg Clark in Swindon on Wednesday to help workers get new skilled jobs, has left employees with very little optimism.
“There is going to be a huge domino effect,” says Paul Davies, who for 12 years has worked at TS Tech which makes Honda’s car seats.
“We’re talking more like 15-17,000 jobs in the end because of the knock-on effect.”
Paddy agrees: “It isn’t just about us, the people who work on the production line. What about the suppliers? What about the shops? It’s going to have a huge effect.”
At Superfry, the chip shop on Bridge Street next to a huge boardedup nightclub, manager Frankie Conestable, 30, shakes his head.
“This is absolutely devastating for the town. The high street is already struggling, just look around you. And most of our customers are Honda workers. It’s the main reason people come to the town. What reason will they have now? Of course I have friends who work there, everyone has.
“I have a friend who has worked there since he was 21 and he has a young family. It’s all he has known. And the problem is, where are they going to work now? There is nothing here any more.
“It’s like a big spider’s web – it’s going to have a huge impact on the whole community. The town is on its knees.”
Ryan Street, 24, a shop assistant at the high street’s Fone Styles, says there are very few job opportunities for young people like him.
“It’s been a huge shock to the whole community,” he admits.
Swindon has emerged from the ashes of change before – in the early 20th century there were about 14,000 men working in the railway works. And by the late 1940s, more than half of the male workforce worked for the railway before the industry finally ended in 1986.
Now, Swindon, from local shops to seat makers, van drivers to car workers, must somehow dust itself off once more.
“I have worked at Honda for a lifetime,” Paddy says. “I have been very lucky. But what about all these generations coming through now? The company has completely betrayed them. We thought we were safe, and now all of a sudden, the plant is closing. It’s a disgrace.”
The motto of the town and its football club is Salubritas et Industria – health and industry.
Swindon knows its civic health and industry are inextricably linked.
We’re talking like 15-17,000 jobs in the end due to knockon effects