It appears that workers at Pirelli’s factory in Carlisle are facing a further reduction to their workload. According to the local News & Star newspaper, a new arrangement begins on February 9, under which employees that normally work 40 hours in the week will be asked to work only 32 per week until April 1. An official statement on the issue is still being approved by the company’s head office in Milan, Italy, the paper added.
The dates for the shutdown of Pirelli’s factory in Carlisle have been confirmed – between February 24 and March 4, production at the plant will be cut to compensate for a dropping demand for passenger car tyres. The News & Star reports a company spokesman as saying “there will be a staged close down and restart commencing from February 24 until March 4. During this period it is anticipated there will be around six days shutdown per production department.”
According to the spokesman, Pirelli attempted to coincide the shutdown with the half-term school holiday break, but was unable to due to previous scheduled maintenance work.
News published by the Cumberland News on January 28 indicates that Pirelli’s factory in Carlisle will close for a week in February. The newspaper talks of a phased shutdown at the factory beginning at the end of the month, and this report is the latest in a serious of setbacks experienced by plant workers – since summer 2008 around 80 employee redundancies have been announced, and the factory’s planned Christmas period shutdown was also extended due to a downturn in sales.
According to The Cumberland News, workers at Pirelli’s Carlisle plant will find out on January 9 whether they are able to return to work following the equipment failure that has delayed operations following the factory’s planned Christmas shutdown period. Although workers were scheduled to return on January 8, plant management informed them that the factory had not yet returned to a fully operational state.
“’During the start-up process after the shutdown period, leaks in the high pressure steam system were detected,” Pirelli said in a statement. “These require immediate repair, therefore there will be a delay in the timing of the start-up of the Carlisle factory planned for January 8.”
An energy and heat loss survey carried out by Eriks UK at Pirelli’s manufacturing facility in Carlisle has led to the implementation of energy savings which, the company estimates, will amount to a total in excess of £60,000. The survey, carried out by Eriks’ condition monitoring division, made extensive use of modern thermographic techniques to identify areas of heat loss. Many of these would have been difficult or impossible to detect and quantify in any other way.
Following a blaze that took several days to extinguish, the 250,000 square foot Carlisle Tire manufacturing facility in Bowdon, Georgia lies in ruins, and it appears likely the remaining company buildings at the site will also require demolition. While nobody was injured in the blaze, around 350 employees now face an uncertain future. According to local media, however, the townspeople of Bowdon are rallying to support those affected.
Pirelli has reportedly again voiced its desire to retain its operations in Carlisle. According to Cumbria Chamber of Commerce chief executive, Rob Johnston, representatives from the Italian manufacturer told him in talks during the week of November 17 to 21 that it planned to remain in the town. He added that the company’s announcement of dropping a shift at the factory and extending its Christmas period shutdown was infinitely better than the alternatives of redundancies or plant closure.
“The dropping of a shift by Pirelli is clearly bad news for those involved and will mean less money circulating in the local economy,” Johnston told the News and Star newspaper. “While this is disappointing, in the current economic circumstances it could have been a lot worse.
Workers at Carlisle Tire and Wheel’s Bowden, Georgia facility are waiting to hear what awaits them in the coming weeks and months following the destruction of part of the company’s facility by fire on November 16. A 32,500 square metre building on the premises is said to have been completely destroyed in the blaze.
The Cumberland News reported today that the boss at Pirelli’s Carlisle plant will leave early next year to take up a position at the company’s plant near Frankfurt, Germany. Mr Carducci-Agostini has worked at the Carlisle plant for four years, spend the first three as production manager before landing the top job last year. His new position will also be heading up the Frankfurt factory.
The paper also understood that the person to take the reigns at Carlisle has been appointed, though further details were as yet unavailable. The change of personnel will not – the News understood – have any impact on operations at the facility.
The Pirelli National Rally, based in Carlisle alongside the manufacturer’s major British plant, will be run under a new name in 2009 after it was announced that it will be integrated into the ANCRO Pirelli MSA Gravel Rally Championship. Founding members of ANCRO, the Cumberland Sporting Car Club have decided to rename the event the Pirelli Tour of Cumbria. This was how the rally was known when it was originally part of the ANCRO series.
In addition to the Gravel Rally Championship, the Tesco 99 Octane British Rally Championship and the Dunlop/Gambia British Historic Rally Championship will be represented with stages at the Pirelli Tour of Cumbria.
Carlisle Companies Incorporated has reported net sales of US$832.5 million for the quarter ended September 30, 2008, a 14 per cent improvement over net sales of $730.4 million in the third quarter of 2007. Transportation product net sales were $205.2 million for the third quarter 2008, an increase of six per cent compared with net sales of $193.3 million in 2007. Softness in the consumer outdoor power equipment (OPE), high-speed trailer tyre and wheel, and styled wheel markets was offset by growth in the commercial OPE, ATV, and agricultural and construction tyre and wheel markets. Sales growth for specialised and pneumatic trailers more than offset continued softness in construction trailers, says the company.
A tyre fire at the premises of FC Tyre Collection Services in Crosby-on-Eden, near Carlisle, has been described as one of the largest fires seen in Cumbria for years. More than 70 firefighters worked to bring the fire, involving hundreds of burning tyres, under control. Cumbria Fire and Rescue Service received an emergency call at 2.30am on September 25, and spend most of the day battling to contain the blaze.
Following a week of uncertainty for Pirelli’s workers in Burton and Carlisle, Pirelli’s management at the two facilities has stated that they are hopeful that work will restart over this weekend.
The faulty boiler at the Carlisle facility meant that both sites needed to be cleared by inspectors before workers could return to the factories. Local press organisations have now confirmed that the managers have announced that both boilers have passed safety inspections and that the company would be contacting workers to notify them of individual shift arrangements.
(Cumberland News) All 1,000 workers at the closure-hit Pirelli tyre factory in Carlisle have been asked to take unpaid leave because bosses believe it is in the plant’s best long-term interests.
Production at Pirelli is due to resume tomorrow after a shutdown. Managers issued the appeal to workers on Tuesday, two days before engineers confirmed that the two boilers, which had triggered the shutdown, eight days ago have now been declared safe.
The factory has stood idle since workers discovered a crack in the main boiler at the Carlisle site last Thursday. Since then workers have been asked to stay away as engineers carried out cleaning and made vital safety checks on the boiler, as well as the one at the firm’s sister plant in Burton, where the factory is also at a standstill.
Production at both plants is expected to resume tomorrow.
But there has been concern among some workers after their bosses wrote to them, setting out a series of options for covering the cost of the eight-day closure.
A union agreement gives workers the option of taking 75% of their basic pay. But the letter tells them that Pirelli has now agreed to give them three options:
Accounting for their time off work by using up paid holiday entitlement;
taking the last week’s time off as unpaid leave; or continuing to be paid but repaying the firm by putting in the requisite extra hours by the end of next year.
The letter says that despite the collective deal to give workers “lay-off” pay at 75% of basic rates, minus overtime and shift premium, “..it must be stressed that the options listed, in agreement with the trade unions, are in the best-long term interests of the factory. Please let your administrator know which option you have chosen.”
The letter concludes by thanking employees for their co-operation at this difficult time and promises to keep everyone informed at the relevant times.
The closure has halted the production of thousands of tyres at the plant, which normally operates around the clock all year.
Some workers contacted The Cumberland News this week, saying that they feared they may lose money as a result of problems which were not of their making.
Alan McGuckin, regional industrial organiser for the Unite union, which represents the bulk of Pirelli workers, said the union had not agreed to support the alternative options in the letter.
He said: “We acknowledge that there are alternatives people can be given, but we don’t have recommendations. What we do have is an agreement covering 75 per cent of minimum earnings levels in exceptional circumstances like this. Workers are entitled to what is in the agreement.”
One worker who contacted The Cumberland News said it was unfair that workers should lose out. “This isn’t our fault,” he said.
Another employee said: “People are worried this is a smokescreen for more job cuts.”
The closure came a few weeks after it emerged that bosses want to shed 60 manufacturing posts at the plant because foreign competition has resulted in lost orders and sales. It is hoped compulsory job losses can be avoided.
A Pirelli spokeswoman said yesterday: “Both boilers involved have passed an inspection and production will resume at the weekend.”
She said workers should contact the factory to confirm shift arrangements. The spokeswoman said the company would not discuss the arrangements for dealing with workers pay during the shutdown period.
In 2005, senior Pirelli managers unveiled plans for a giant wind turbine, which they said was crucial to the factory’s long-term success as it strove to cut energy costs.
Planning permission was granted and managers have said that while there is doubt over whether the city is windy enough the 120m turbine is still part of Pirelli’s plans for the future. (Tire Review/Akron)
Following growing concerns amongst workers about the temporary closures of Pirelli’s plants in Burton and Carlisle – amid safety concerns over the buildings’ boilers – the Italian manufacturer has advised staff to contact their supervisors between 10am and 4pm tomorrow.
Fears have grown that the 60 job cuts announced for the Carlisle plant last month could be followed up with more bad news when the two sites failed to reopen swiftly after the inspection of the boilers. Pirelli has stressed the importance of the safety of its workers throughout the temporary closure. A spokesman said today, “Following inspection of the affected boilers, a thorough cleaning process is underway. If all aspects of this process are successful, then we will be able to give further clarification on when the plant will resume production.”
Workers look likely to find out tomorrow whether more bad news is to follow.
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