Business Secretary Peter Mandelson is due at the GM Luton plant, Gate 2, at 9.30am this morning.
He has been invited by the local Unite trade union leaders, but no arrangements were made to inform the workforce that he was coming, or for the 1,000 workforce to put their point of view to the Labour government minister.
None of the workers were aware of the meeting until they were told about it yesterday morning by the News Line.
Arthur Lynn, former TGWU convenor at Luton, said: ‘The workers in the plant are furious that the union is not keeping them informed of what is going on.
‘I’ve spoken to workers in the plant who say the unions should be fighting for both the Vauxhall plants in the UK, Ellesmere Port and Luton, and also those on the Continent.
‘We should not be trying to pit one plant against another.
‘Yesterday afternoon, Unite hung a banner outside the plant to welcome Mandelson’s visit.
‘All it said was “Unite is backing Luton’ – save Vauxhall jobs’’. Absolutely nothing about how these jobs would be saved.
‘As the national leadership has ruled out demanding the nationalisation of the car industry, all this means is begging the government to do something.
‘They’re not making any demands on the government.
‘Without nationalisation, there can be no future for any car plant, let alone Luton, which is the most vulnerable at the moment.’
David Wiltshire, national secretary of the All Trades Union Alliance, said: ‘The fact is that it now turns out that it was the unions that invited Lord Mandelson to the plant.
‘But they do not appear to have informed their members that he was coming.
‘It is a glaring example of the contempt in which they are holding their membership.
‘Union officials have said that they have many questions they’re going to ask Mandelson.
‘But it’s not an issue of asking Mandelson questions, the unions should be demanding that the government nationalise not just the Luton plant, but the whole of the motor industry to prevent the jobs massacre.
‘Mandelson intends meeting with the union officials and having a photo opportunity and a chat with the management.
‘The workers at the plant should speak up and impose their own will on the situation.
‘They must demand nationalisation and replace Brown and Mandelson with a workers government, that will carry out a planned socialist economy and ensure no jobs are lost to the altar of capitalist profit.’
GM worker Ken said: ‘The union is doing things behind the workers backs when they should be getting the workers involved.
‘But they never get the workers involved in anything.
‘All they do is come round and say when it’s down days.
‘We want to find out who is really going to take the plant over. But we have no confidence.
‘We need a mass meeting to decide on action to save the factory and save our jobs.
‘We need to occupy and call for the nationalisation of GM.
‘We need to force the unions to fight for these things.
‘Ellesmere Port and Luton should stick together and fight for jobs.’
Another worker, Bernard, added: ‘We were told nothing by the union that Mandelson was invited down, we were all presuming management had.
‘But if the union has invited him, members should all turn out to give him a welcome.
‘To get more money out of the plant they are planning to go to two shifts and lay off the third shift, increase working hours and impose a pay cut.
‘All this is to squeeze a few more drops out of us before they scrap us.
‘The union should have called a mass meeting. People have questions of their own to ask Mandelson.
‘We should insist on a mass meeting to decide what we are going to do.
‘Someone is going to have to take the bull by the horns.
‘We should occupy the plant and demand it’s nationalised.
‘The government have nationalised banks and now a railway, so why not Luton.
‘There’s a lot of history in this plant. In its heyday there were 30,000 people there.’
• Mandelson yesterday condemned planned strike action by postal workers over Royal Mail modernisation plans.
