Back On Line

Sorry I've been away for a long time. Frankly the last 12 months at work have been murder as manufacturing has felt the full force of the global downturn. Redundancies and/or short time working have hit every workplace I represent and it means massive work for all the officers and staff of our union. At the end of last year things looked very grim for manufacturers in this country as nearly every firms order book looked like a ski slope!

Things are looking better than they did - altogether they are a long way from perfect. Its been a difficult 12 months but the one consolation we can take from it is that without our government's initiative there would have been another 500,000 on the dole. If the Tories had had their way over Northern Rock we'd have seen the collapse of the British banking system and god knows how many on the dole!

Anyway I'm back now and will do my best to keep you informed of developments in the run up to the General Election. Here's to a busy 7 or 8 months.