SHOCKED workers at Ulverston's Glaxo plant were left considering their futures following a "cataclysmic" announcement yesterday that the company plans to shed 400 jobs.
Stunned staff leaving the plant after the day-shift yesterday (Thursday) were tight-lipped about the news, but the area's MP John Hutton described it as a "bitter blow" for workers, their families and the Furness economy.
The announcement came at 3pm yesterday at a special meeting in the staff canteen where workers were "briefed on management proposals to defend the site's main business against competition." If the company goes ahead with the proposals, 400 jobs will be lost over the next two years.
GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) spokeswoman Kate Levine later told the Gazette that competition from other manufacturers copying GSK drugs had forced the company to consider stopping making a key antibiotic ingredient, known as 7ACA, at Ulverston and buy it instead from manufactures in Europe and Asia.
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