WORKERS FROM Remploy in Dundee are set to join an assembly of trade unionists and campaigners protesting against the threatened closure of 43 disabled workers’ factories.

A campaign bus will visit Remploy factories throughout the UK in response to the announcement in May that 43 of them could close.

The bus, which set out from Aberdeen on Tuesday, will be at the Dundee factory in Dunsinane Industrial Estate for a rally at 1.30pm before moving to Cowdenbeath at 4.30 pm.

Although the Dundee factory, which employs around 75 people, will not be closed or merged, trade union activists there and in Cowdenbeath will rally to the cause and lead a mass walkout when the coach arrives.

Speakers will include Dundee West MP Jim McGovern, Marilyn Glen MSP, Jennie Formby (Transport and General Workers’ Union) and the GMB’s Phil Brannan, Phil Davies, Paul Kenny and Les Woodward.

The bus will take the Remploy campaign throughout Scotland, England and Wales before arriving in Bournemouth on September 24, during the Labour party conference, for a major rally.

Campaigners say that Remploy’s share of public procurement orders stands at £32 million out of £136 billion paid for by the taxpayer each year.

Activists will call for the transfer of contracts worth 5p in every £100 of current public procurement spending to Remploy to keep all 83 factories open.

The public are invited to attend rallies and meetings and write to the Government to support these demands.

Phil Davies, GMB national secretary and secretary of the Remploy Consortium, said, “The Remploy Crusade will be asking everyone to contact their MP and local council, health centre and school, and each public body to support the Remploy workers by moving some of their public procurement work to Remploy.

“The moving of a mere 5p in every £100 that is already being spent by public bodies to Remploy will provide plenty of work and keep disabled workers in their jobs.”

Earlier this year, Remploy, the UK’s largest employer of disabled workers, announced modernisation plans that would close 32 factories and involve thousands of job losses.

A further 11 factories will be merged.

The Government has ruled out making any disabled workers redundant, but has not given the same guarantees to the company’s able-bodied workers.

There are 83 Remploy factories in Scotland, Wales and England, manufacturing products from bath oil to car components. None of the factories breaks even, and the agency is overspending its subsidy of £111 million a year, which has been guaranteed for five years.

Concerns have mounted since Minister for Disabled People Anne McGuire ordered a review last year.