theSwitchback

It’s been a strange weekend for MINI followers, and a terrible one for 850 MINI agency staff and their families as news broke on Saturday that 850 jobs were to go at BMW Group Plant Oxford, the UK home of MINI production.

These reports were initially brushed aside by a BMW spokesman as purely speculative in a statement to the BBC, adding that while discussions had been held with Unite union representatives over shift pattern changes,

our first priority is to communicate with the workforce

These words rang rather hollow early on Monday morning, as confirmation came from BMW, again reported by the BBC, that 850 agency workers had indeed been told there would be no further work for them as of next week, and as rumours had previously suggested the weekend shift was closing down in its entirety, reducing the number of production days for the MINI from seven to five.

A BMW statement on the situation read:

Mini plant Oxford will be bringing in a new shift pattern in response to continuing volatile market conditions.. As of Monday 2 March, the plant will go from a three-shift to a two-shift pattern, operating five days per week instead of the current seven. The company regrets that this change will result in the release of around 850 agency workers from the business.

Reaction from affected agency staff has been upset and angry as you may expect, we can only hope the situation improves soon enough and they can find work elsewhere, or back at plant Oxford. It seems a real shame at this time that the new MINI SAV (Crossman) cannot be produced alongside the hatch, Clubman and Convertible at Plant Oxford, rather than outsourced to Austria when workers are being let go due to falling demand for new cars, however production limitations appeared to rule out that possibility very early on in planning for the new model.

At the same time there seems to be confusion regarding the launch date of the new MINI Convertible, and when the first customers will receive their cars. Many of the first to order seem to be getting scant feedback from their dealers concerning production and delivery dates, and some potential owners appear to be getting twitchy, especially as the production facility closes and shift patterns are reduced. Latest rumours suggest that a parts supply issue may have affected the earliest build customer cars, and the sourcing and fitment of replacement parts has caused a slight hold up, while replacement parts are being fitted to more recent builds on the line. No official comment from MINI has been forthcoming on the MINI Convertible situation at this time.

There could be more flack coming MINIs way this week, as BBC consumer affairs programme Watchdog will feature a fairly widely reported problem with the first generation MINI and failing power steering pumps.

Tags: bmw group plant oxford, job cuts, mini convertible, mini production, plant oxford

This entry was posted on Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 9:18 am and is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.