Union in talks on Birmingham council housing jobs threat
UNION officials are to hold talks with business chiefs in Birmingham over fears that up to 200 city workers who are contracted to maintain council housing are to lose their jobs.
It is feared that 105 jobs could be axed at Inspace Partnerships and a further 95 may be lost at Mears Group Plc.
The two firms who won a contract last November worth a total £123 million from Birmingham City Council to maintain 37,000 of the local authority's social housing in the north of the city.
The work had previously been contracted to Morrisons but the council revealed last November that it was putting the contract out to tender to comply with new European regulations.
When the changes were announced last year Steve Murphy, regional secretary of union UCATT, said he feared it would result in jobs being lost.
Today he said: "The council promised there would be no job losses but now it has emerged there could be a great number of jobs going so my fears have come to fruition.
"What I cannot understand is why the contract was taken off Morrisons in the first place as the company was doing well and housing tenants were more than satisfied with the service it was providing."
He said he had not been told official figures of how many jobs are to go but he is set to meet with the two businesses today.
The wife of a Mears employee, who refused to be named, said: "It's only six weeks after the company won the contract, yet now it's called all staff in and has announced that 95 workers, which is 50 per cent of the workforce that deals with this contract, are to be made redundant.
"My husband said he has been told that another 105 jobs will go at Inspace.
"His bosses at Mears said initially they will be seeking voluntary redundancies and if no one comes forward they would have to do compulsory redundancies."
A spokesman for Mears said: "We have notified our staff that some jobs may be at risk and this may involve redundancies.
"At the moment we are entering a consultation phase which will allow Mears and our staff to bring forward proposals to mitigate redundancies. "
Inspace was unavailable for comment. Birmingham City Council declined to comment.
