Ceremony as Remploy factory shuts

There were protests to try and save the factory

Staff from a Remploy factory which has closed after 60 years of operations have described their "devastation".

A ceremony for the 79 workers has been planned to mark the end of work at the Treforest site, near Pontypridd, which was shut despite a fight to save it.

Remploy, which employs disabled people, and the UK government had guaranteed that no disabled employee would be made compulsorily redundant.

But the GMB union said 90% of the workforce had to accept redundancy.

It said there are no suitable jobs for them in the area.

The factory is one of four in Remploy's furniture sector which is shutting after running up loses of more than £15m last year.

We proved to Remploy a number of times the figures they were sending us were in correct Ieuan Boyle, worker

Workers put forward plans to take run the factory themselves as a co-operative, but were turned down by the company which rejected their proposals.

As staff prepared to say goodbye to the factory, Ieuan Boyle, from Tonyrefail, said he and his colleagues were "devastated".

"We have got people in there now crying," he said.

"We feel let down by Remploy themselves and especially by the government, which is supposed to be a caring Labour government."

Modernisation plans

Mr Boyle claimed Treforest was paying the price for other factories' losses and that they had shown it could be run as a viable business.

"We proved to Remploy a number of times the figures they were sending us were in correct," he said.

Pontypridd AM Jane Davidson, who has helped campaign to keep the factory open, will attend the closing ceremony later on Thursday.

Remploy was founded in 1945 to offer employment to people with disabilities, opening its first factory at Bridgend a year later, making furniture and violins.

It currently employs 5,000 people across Britain, with 11 sites in Wales. Of those 11 sites, eight are unaffected by the new modernisation plans.

Under original modernisation plans put forward in spring 2007, Remploy proposed closing 43 of its factories, including seven Welsh sites.

But after protests new plans were drawn up.

Brynamman, Carmarthenshire, and Ystradgynlais in the Upper Tawe Valley will also shut, with work transferred to Remploy's factory at Baglan, Neath Port Talbot.