Engineers vote for strike in protest over job cuts

摘要

Engineers at Rolls-Royce's Coventry plant have voted to strike over job cuts, amid fears that the company is planning to shift its research and development work out of the UK. Professionals at the company's Ansty plant in Coventry voted 4-1 in favour of industrial action, in protest at plans to cut nearly 1,300 skilled engineering jobs in the energy R&D division and transfer work to Canada. John Wall, national secretary for aerospace at the MSF union, said the 2,400 staff at Ansty believe Rolls-Royce's decision could mean the end of the company's R&D work as a whole in the UK. 'This could be the thin end of the wedge as far as the very British identity of Rolls-Royce is concerned. The company has said nothing to allay our members' fears over the future of R&D in the UK.'