Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Harringay factory providing employment for disabled people to be closed by Government
Trade unions and Labour MPs reacted with anger yesterday after the government announced the closure of two in three of the remaining Remploy factories for disabled workers with the loss of more than 1,700 jobs.
One of the factories affected is the North London factory on Hermitage Road. The factory is now likely to close with the loss of 24 jobs including 22 disabled workers.
Remploy was set up after the Second World War to provide manufacturing jobs in a sheltered environment for people with disabilities.
Ministers have decided they are no longer a cost-effective way of helping disabled people into work because the factories don't have enough orders.
Maria Miller, minister for the Disabled, explained that the annual £68m government subsidy to Remploy could be better spent on other programmes to help the disabled into work and claimed the move had the support of disabled groups.
She highlighted figures suggesting the annual cost to support each Remploy worker was £25,000 a year, compared to the equivalent £2,900 cost of its Access to Work scheme.
Whilst the case is straightforward for the unions who have expressed outrage at the decision, most disability charities back the move on grounds that the sheltered factory model is long outdated.
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Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by pamish on
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This is a straightforward cuts decision. Separate workplaces as a choice should be kept for those who prefer it. I'm happy for my taxes to be used to support this. Pretending that a person with a disability can always be assimilated into a mixed workplace is just nonsense. The politics of the school playground can persist into adulthood.
But a googleimage search of that address in Hermitage Rd means that someone up the levels of management is not exactly out there hustling for best working environments. The unions are arguing that the Remploy management has got complaisant. If this shakes them up, well+good.
Closing that Remploy factory would add just another shut-down factory to the litany, another bricked-up door in N4. The chances of those dozen people being redeployed into the mainstream workforce - think of a number.
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