Business
Labour must step up to help JLR supply chain jobs, says Unite
Ed Jamesin Solihull and
Chloe HughesWest Midlands
Jason RichardsA union has said the Labour Party needs to “step up” and help workers from supply-chain firms affected by the Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) shutdown following a cyber-attack.
The car-maker’s production lines have been at a standstill for more than a fortnight, with concerns growing some companies reliant on the brand’s business could go bust without support.
Jason Richards, Unite’s regional officer for the West Midlands, said thousands or tens of thousands of people could be laid off if there was no positive news from JLR, which has plants in Wolverhampton, Solihull and Merseyside.
Minister for Industry Chris McDonald said JLR was taking the lead on support for its own supply chain.
He said cyber experts continued to support JLR to resolve the issue as quickly as possible.
“Yesterday I met West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker to discuss the effect the shutdown at Jaguar Land Rover is having on the region, and we agreed to keep in close touch while the company works to get production up and running again,” he added.
A spokesperson for the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders said they held an extraordinary meeting of their automotive components section on Friday, which was attended by officials from the Department for Business and Trade.
“This allowed us to listen to suppliers directly and understand the challenges and concerns they are facing,” the two organisations said in a joint statement.
In response, JLR said it welcomed the meeting, and said it was an important move to identify challenges that businesses were facing following the cyber attack.
Reuters“I don’t want to be pessimistic, and I don’t want to sensationalise this, but I really am concerned about the issue we find ourselves in,” said Mr Richards.
“Members within the automotive supply chain… some employers are laying off with pay, some employers are laying off on reduced pay, some employers are introducing interim banked hours agreements… but some are laying off without pay.
“They’ll get the statutory award of £39 a day for five days, and then after the five days they get zero and they’re being signposted to universal credit,” he told BBC Radio WM.
Mr Richards suggested that a furlough-type scheme could be introduced by the government, but added that he understood there was not a “magic money tree”.
“We’re having very little feedback from government – the Labour Party was farmed by the trade union movement… it’s time for the Labour Party to step up.”
ReutersUmesh Samani, chairman of the Independent Motor Dealers Association, based in Stoke-on-Trent, which has more than 1,000 members, said most independent dealers were saying they were not currently badly affected.
However he said the lack of clarity around when operations at JLR could begin again was an issue.
“The bigger companies probably can ride the storm a little bit longer but the smaller ones in the supply chain… there’s no way they can continue,” he said.
He said he agreed the government needed to step in.
“They’ve got to do something – otherwise there’s going to be so many small businesses going bust, so they’ve got to try and help alleviate the situation,” Mr Samani said.
‘Do not dither and delay’
Conservative MP for Meriden and Solihull East, Saqib Bhatti, was one of those who wrote to Chancellor Rachel Reeves – he told the BBC government support needed to be “proactive and robust”.
“I’ve asked for a short-term loan scheme where the government convenes all the banks, and they ask the banks to come up with a solution on this,” he said.
“What I want is for the government to get those banks in a room to come up with a special loan facility; they will absolutely have the templates to do that.”
He also asked for insurers to deal with claims quickly.
“Do not dither and delay; there are jobs at stake here, there are businesses at stake here. We need real action,” he said.
“Anyone you speak to will recognise that Jaguar Land Rover and our automotive sector is in our DNA as West Midlanders.
“This is really, really important, and if the supply chain goes, this could have a huge amount of ramifications – because once people leave the workforce, it’s really hard to get them back.”
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Target faces a new boycott over ICE response as retailer presses ahead with turnaround
A major teachers’ union is calling for its members to skip Target when buying back-to-school supplies, the latest twist in a series of boycotts that have targeted the big-box retailer as its turnaround shows signs of life, CNBC has learned.
The AFT, or American Federation of Teachers, passed a resolution Thursday that calls on its 1.8 million members and others to shop at local stores and not at Target, saying the company did not respond adequately to the surge of federal immigration enforcement in the retailer’s hometown of Minneapolis this winter. Federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, during the operation.
The labor union, which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO, plans to urge a similar resolution at AFL-CIO’s convention in Minneapolis this summer and at conventions held by other organizations, including the NAACP and LULAC, AFT President Randi Weingarten said.
Target declined to comment specifically on the AFT’s resolution but said in a statement that it has “a longstanding commitment to strengthening the communities we serve,” including donating 5% of profits since the company’s founding and offering a discount to educators as part of a teacher appreciation program.
Target’s annual sales have declined for the past three years in a row, but the company’s new CEO Michael Fiddelke laid out an ambitious plan earlier this month to refresh its stores, add more enticing merchandise and return to sales growth. The retailer said it expects net sales to rise about 2% this fiscal year compared with the prior year and anticipates sales will grow every quarter.
It is unclear if and how much the AFT’s call for a back-to-school boycott could hurt Target, which is trying to win back customers. Earlier this month, Atlanta area pastor Jamal Harrison Bryant announced the end of a yearlong boycott of the company, called Target Fast, which had started because of the company’s rollback of major diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
At a press conference, Bryant said Target has demonstrated its commitment to the Black community with investments in Black businesses and donations to Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Yet other activists leading a separate boycott, including former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, have said they continue to call for shoppers to steer clear of Target.
The AFT previously supported and participated in the Target boycott over its DEI rollback.
The retailer has attributed some of its sales losses to backlash to its DEI decision, along with other factors including company missteps with merchandise, a weaker store experience and softer discretionary spending.
At an investor meeting in Minneapolis in early March, Fiddelke stressed that it’s “a new chapter for Target.” He said the company is “doing the work to build connection with new guests, deepen relationships with existing guests and earn back trust with guests we’ve disappointed.”
In a separate email to Target employees earlier this month, Fiddelke highlighted how the retailer is putting its strategy into action, including through its move to cut prices on more than 3,000 items and the opening of its 2,000th store. He said Target has made progress with winning back trust, too, noting the end of the Target Fast boycott.
He said Target has had “ongoing conversations with the organizers” of the boycott, who have “acknowledged the meaningful contributions Target has made, and will continue to make, to the Black community.”
In an interview with CNBC, Weingarten said the AFT’s boycott is focused on what she called Target’s lack of response to the surge of aggressive and violent immigration enforcement in its own backyard. Weingarten said the AFT sent a letter to Target and met with Target staff to encourage them to speak up before the union moved to pass the resolution.
“Target was negotiating with our colleagues in the civil rights community for weeks and weeks and weeks,” she said. “They could have very easily dealt with both [concerns about DEI and immigration enforcement] and they chose not to.”
She said Target is “more worried about standing with the Trump administration than the communities that made them a profitable company.”
Fiddelke joined dozens of executives from Minnesota-based corporations in co-signing a letter in late January calling for an “immediate de-escalation” in the state after the fatal shooting of Pretti. However, the letter did not name the shooting victims Pretti or Good or call out the president, his immigration policies or federal agents.
Fiddelke also shared a video message with employees that more directly acknowledged current events, but stopped short of calling for ICE agents to leave the city or for accountability in the two shooting deaths.
Weingarten described the CEOs’ letter as “insulting” and said it “basically blamed both sides.”
She said the union, which includes many teachers, can have the greatest financial impact during the back-to-school shopping season this summer and fall. By passing the resolution now, she said, the AFT can get the word out to members and “give Target enough time to come back to its senses.”
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