The government has stressed its intervention in the row over the closure of Ford Motor’s Jaguar plant in Browns Lane, Coventry, should not be seen as a precedent.
Patricia Hewitt, trade and industry secretary, said the important issue in this case was to make sure management and unions talked and listened to each other.
John Prescott, told the Labour Party conference, in Brighton, he fully supported the campaign of Jaguar workers against the plant closure.
Jaguar did not give ministers or the workforce any advance notice and it had made pledges to unions in the spring that the future of the Coventry factory was secure.
References: Financial Times 01/10/04 page 4, The Daily Telegraph 01/10/04 page 8
