Drinks Giant Cuts 900 Jobs

[OneNamedNameLess]

I don't think this story has received much coverage outside of Scotland. The fight to save these jobs has been ongoing for a while now. Btw, the cuts have went ahead despite Diageo recording over £2 billion in profits over the last year.


[FONT=Comic Sans MS]Diageo[/FONT][FONT=Comic Sans MS], the drinks group, said it would press ahead with up to 900 job cuts after rejecting alternative proposals backed by the Scottish government.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Comic Sans MS]A business case was submitted to the group last week for keeping its Johnnie Walker whisky bottling plant in Kilmarnock and Port Dundas distillery in Glasgow. But Diageo said the proposals were not commercially viable and dialogue was now closed. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Comic Sans MS]Johnnie Walker is the most widely distributed brand of blended whisky in the world and has been linked since 1820 with Kilmarnock, which is to lose 700 jobs, while the distillery closure will cost another 200 jobs.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Comic Sans MS]The job losses met a storm of protest when announced in July, even though Diageo said they would be offset by formation of 400 jobs by expansion of its bottling operations at Leven in Fife. Alex Salmond, Scotland’s first minister, led a protest march through Kilmarnock and a multi-agency taskforce of unions, councils, Scottish Enterprise and politicians was formed to fight the closures.[/FONT]
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[FONT=Comic Sans MS]But David Gosnell, managing director of Diageo global supply, said the proposals did not deliver a business model that would be good for either Diageo or Scotland. [/FONT]
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[FONT=Comic Sans MS]“We need a sustainable Scottish operation that supports our international spirits business and provides a future for the 4,000 people we would employ in Scotland after this restructuring is completed.” [/FONT]
[FONT=Comic Sans MS]Diageo said under the proposals there would “still be a significant economic gap” that would “embed inefficiencies”, which would “put at risk further investment” in Scotland. [/FONT]
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Some images of the protest in July:
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Kilmarnock is not that big a town but twenty thousand apparently turned out all the same.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/...st/8168982.stm