Redundancies

John Carty

An extract from a BBC Radio programme 'The Linwood Story' broadcast in 1981.

John Carty was a Trades Union leader in Linwood, in the 1970s.

"When they launched the Avenger under Rootes, with some guidance from Chrysler, we were promised there would be approximately 8,000 people employed. The company took on a number of people and, only months after they had taken them on, they said they were sorry they had made a mistake with the market. And they were saying there had to be 1,500 people made redundant on each side of the road. Which meant that we had taken on about 4,000 the year before and, within six months, they were saying they had to pay off about 3,000. Which obviously made people insecure about the future."