WORKERS at a Remploy factory in Glasgow staged impromptu industrial action yesterday after the firm refused to reveal potential bidders for the site.
The factory is one of nine disabled worker sites – including Aberdeen and Edinburgh – which were offered a reprieve on Tuesday as the UK Government announced plans to try to sell them.
Ministers also revealed plans to close a factory in Motherwell along with 26 other sites across the UK, making around 1400 disabled people redundant.
Phil Brannan, GMB union convener for Remploy, said workers at the factory in Springburn decided against going back to work following a union meeting yesterday afternoon.
They occupied the site's canteen for several hours until closing time.
Mr Brannan said: "The company said yesterday that Springburn was one of the factories which had received an expression of interest to try to save the site, but Remploy has refused to reveal the name of the company interested in taking us over.
"This means we can't carry out any investigations into the potential bidder or represent our members effectively because we don't know the background.
"It also means we've now got yet more weeks of worry until we find out what's going to happen.
"We held a union meeting at around 2pm and the workers decided to occupy the canteen as a protest. I've been a union rep at the site for 32 years and we've never taken any sort of unofficial action before."
A Remploy spokesman said: "Our commercial process is a confidential process and all the participants are covered by a non-disclosure agreement to maintain that confidentiality.
"That's why we are unable to provide any details of business plans or possible bidders for the factories at this moment."
On Tuesday, as the Government announced the plans, Labour accused the Coalition of throwing disabled workers "on the scrapheap".
However, a Department for Work and Pensions source said it was confident it could get many of those affected back into the workplace.
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