AddThis SmartLayers

Editor addresses 8,000-strong protest rally over jobs

A regional daily editor addressed a huge protest rally this weekend as the fight to save thousands of train-making jobs intensified.

Steve Hall, editor of the Derby Telegraph, is helping lead the fight to persuade the government to review its decision to award the £1.4bn contract to build new carriages for Thameslink to the German company Siemens ahead of Derby-based Bombardier.

More than 8,000 people attended a protest rally held on Saturday over the decision which has already cost 1,500 jobs in the city and could eventually cost up to 10,000.

In what the Telegraph called a “magnificent show of unity,” Bombardier’s workers and unions marched side-by-side with the company’s entire senior management for team as well as representatives of all three main political parties.

 

Steve told the rally:  “I’m not here today as a politician or a trade unionist. I am neither. The Derby Telegraph is not party political and has little time for this government or the last over their treatment of Bombardier.

“But the paper will not stand idly by and watch a crime of this magnitude be committed against our city.

“I was part of the delegation that travelled to Berlin three weeks ago to meet with Bombardier’s European management.

“We had hoped they would tell us that there were other orders globally that Bombardier were competing for or work in its other factories that could be switched to Derby. We were disappointed.

“They explained that, as the only train-builder to maintain a British plant and support British jobs, they had expected to be in pole position for contracts from the British government.

“And, if that wasn’t going to be the case, they would have to consider their future plans.

“It was clear after that meeting that the only people who could clear up this mess were the ones who created it.

“We are convinced that if there is a political will to resolve the issue, there is a way.”

The government has maintanied all along that it was forced to give the contract to Siemens because of EU regulations and that it cannot review the decision for the same reasons.

However Steve said that the newspaper had spoken to EU legal experts who say that, even if the whole contract cannot be reversed, there is nothing to stop the Government ordering Siemens to sub-contract a substantial part of the job – perhaps even 50pc – to Bombardier.

Added Steve:  “The MPs hope that the issue will have disappeared by the time they get back from the beach – that you will simply fade away.

“If they seriously believe that, they know little about the rail industry and they damn sure don’t know Derby.”