Tuesday, June 02, 2009
Honda restarts Swindon production
Production at Honda' Swindon plant restarted yesterday after a four month shutdown. The plant will operate at half its full capacity.
The manufacturer said production on its Civic and CR-V models, for the UK and export to European markets, had been restarted as a result of it successfully reducing stocking levels since the plant's temporary closure at the end of January.
The carmaker said it used the period to prepare the plant for the new Jazz which goes into production at the factory in the autumn.
It also installed new, faster and more efficient machinery has which it claimed will help to secure the long-term future of the plant.
"We'll only be working about 50 per cent of our full capacity," confirmed Honda director David Hodgetts.
"We have tried our best to protect jobs. There's been no compulsory redundancies at all at Honda, and that's the biggest objective we had throughout this period.
Workers at the plant agreed to a 3 per cent pay cut for the next 10 months with managers taking a 5 per cent drop. Around 1,300 staff took voluntary redundancy, reducing the number of workers to 3,400.
DATED: 02.06.09
FEED: MT
