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A bit of a sad story losing jobs to a German company Siemens.There are about twelfhundred jobs going.Siemens is a big and powerfull company they are into windmill production and opening a factory here soon in yorkshire.The jobs are going in Derby how much trade off is going on when these big company's put in a offer? Siemens are going to build the trains instead of the factory in the UK.
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Bizarre It was less than 2 years ago that a firm in the IOW closed their factory making wind turbine blades, due to lack of demand! Some of us will live long enough to look back and see the rush into windpower as a huge financial and economic misjudgment. We shall still need back up power sources for those days of -6C and no wind.
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there have been lots and lots of days where wind farms have been dumping gigawatts of power to ground because the grid cant use it. You cant turn the wind on and off. You cant turn waves on and off either. We also use more power at night when its darker, so solar is a right godsend
Storage of power is the key, but its damn hard to store gigawatts of AC power.
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Where we are the power stations are coal fired, coal from East Europe.There is also a small powerstation running on northsea gas from Easington.While we are talking about power.Our gas bill has gone up again.Somebody is making plenty of money.
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Whatever happened to hydropower?
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>>Whatever happened to hydropower?
>>
Building mountains is rather expensive.
Norwegians use Hydro from their mountains and sell us the gas they do not use from their part of the North Sea
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>>Building mountains is rather expensive.>>
I recall visiting New Lanark in Scotland about 20 years ago where there was a hydropower station on the Clyde. Don't know if it's still there.
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>> Where we are the power stations are coal fired, coal from East Europe.
>> There is also a small powerstation running on northsea gas from Easington.
>> While we are talking about power.Our gas bill has gone up again.
>> Somebody is making plenty of money.
On the subject of energy bills going up - who pays the premium for the "feed in tariff" for individual house solar generation for the next 25 years?
www.fitariffs.co.uk/FITs/principles/funding/
Everyone else who isn't generating their own.
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There is a massive plant in Spain & Siemens do run lots of trains in the uk at least British jobs are secure, it's cheaper abroad look at the quality of the 333-332 rubbish.
Hitachi in Japan build them the skills in the uk have gone to the wall, we had Derby and York works now all going away.
Siemens maintain trains in Leeds at Neville Hill so jobs for these lads.
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Positive about Siemens they do invest a lot in the UK.
No consulation for the employees in Derby swings and roundabouts i suppose.
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Iam going on a bit but I can't still get my head around all these job losses.
These two faced politicians don't give a tosh about the bloke on the shop floor.
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>> Iam going on a bit but I can't still get my head around all these
>> job losses.
>> These two faced politicians don't give a tosh about the bloke on the shop floor.
I really don't think you're right; if nothing else they'd like the bloke to vote for them again. Problem is, we're in a very deep recession and job losses at underperforming factories are inevitable.
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Its not underperforming Mapmaker,they are not getting any support from this bunch of politicians.
Do you think the Germans or the French would allow this to happen.? I don't think so.
Now its the previous goverment fault again to do with contracts etc.
The last thing you want in a deep recession is to throw more people on the dole.
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Bombardier is stated to have informed the government a few months ago that, even if it did land the contract, a large number of jobs would be lost in any case as there would not be enough orders overall.
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What's with the BBC's pronunciation of bom-baa-dee-ay.
Completely different bom-ba-deer if you're a squaddie or Charles Wells drinker.
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Stuarti.
The contractors would be layed off for a short period of time and be re employed again for the new contract.
The trouble is the Germans have invested in their manufacturing industries.We haven't.
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>> The trouble is the Germans have invested in their manufacturing industries.We haven't.
Very interesting piece on Radio 4 about this a couple of weeks ago. During the recent global recession, German manufacturers generally retained staff, using various measures including temporary redeployment, shorter working hours and reduced pay. The point being, they retained the skill and experience within their business, ready to be immediately available when things picked up. By contrast, British manufacturers have been much more keen to go down the redundancy route.
As the economy has picked up, the Germans are reaping the rewards for this approach. By largely retaining their skill and experienced workers, the German plants have been ideally placed to come back on stream and up to full production with minimal delay. In Britain, many organisations have had to spend time and money hiring and training new people before they can do the same thing.
There is a strong tradition of short sighted, 'small picture' management in this country.
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>>There is a strong tradition of short sighted, 'small picture' management in this country.
And there is a strong tradition of Unions making negotiation with employees almost impossible - hence redundancy being the only way forward. Certainly in the City lots of employees were working shorter hours.
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>> What's with the BBC's pronunciation of bom-baa-dee-ay.
>>
>> Completely different bom-ba-deer if you're a squaddie or Charles Wells drinker.
I think the BBC pronunciation is the company's based on their Canadian (or Canadien?) roots.
There's a pub round the corner in Fleet St that serves the Charles Wells stuff. There used to be a lovely Francophone West African lass on the staff who pronounced the beer in the same way as the BBC!!
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British workers with rail experiance will get a job in Germany but easier if they speak the lingo.
Auz & nz want us. :-)
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>> What's with the BBC's pronunciation of bom-baa-dee-ay.
We sometimes deliver into there, it's always pronounced that way by anyone I have cause to discuss the job with in Leicester, so must have been a long-standing Midlands thing.
Having come from Charlie Wells country I've had plenty of experience of the other pronunciation too ;)
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Bombardier are a Canadian company with a Head office in French speaking Montreal named after their founder Joseph-Armand Bombardier, hence the French pronunciation of the Company's name.
They make trains and Aircraft.
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>> Positive about Siemens they do invest a lot in the UK.
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>> No consulation for the employees in Derby swings and roundabouts i suppose.
>>
Negotiate with UK employees? Monkey's in a nursery springs to mind. Usually greedy ones at that.
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Sad to hear that you think about your fellow country men as thick.
The times of British Leyland are over Red Robin is gone.
The Brits work longer hours than Germans they insist on long holidays good salarys and excellent benefit systems.
The Dutch receive a set percentage once a year from their salary on top of holiday pay.
I could go on,the education system has to change and should be more geared to people using their hands to make a living.
Things went downhill when the contract system was brought in was it a yankee idea?
Hire and fire and to hell with the worker.
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Bombardier are NOT closing down - they are restructuring and down-sizing.
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Interesting how UK companies react during economic cycles.
I work for a European company and during previous industry downturns they have always avoided reducing headcount by looking for other savings such as pay freezes, flexible working, reduced working hours etc
They take a longer term view about retaing skills, knowledge and experience.
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>> Siemens maintain trains in Leeds at Neville Hill so jobs for these lads.
And Brush Traction at Loughborough - that site is almost as big as Bombardier's.
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Doncaster works still overhaul trains the c6 full overhaul programs are done there so not all bad news.
Gascoigne wood pit would make a massive rail depot/works at Sherburn ideal as many roads (track) into the yard, shame this country won't invest in it's workforce.
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Last train manufacturer shutting down. - Meldrew
