Gutted . . .

[Steve]

Got called into work today for an announcement by senior management, all staff got phoned up yesterday and asked to attend a meeting.

I work for Johnnie Walker whisky, which bottles whisky at their plant in Kilmarnock, which is the town where Johnnie Walker was born and started the whole business many years ago.

The company who owns the brand is restructuring and we've all been given notice that the plant is going to close in 2011, so the whisky will no longer be bottled in the place it says on the label and the towns biggest employer will be gone

It wasn't pleasant at all to be in that meeting and see some of your co-workers, who've been with the company from when they left school, in tears at losing their jobs

Can't believe they'd think of closing the plant, kind of a kick in the teeth for proper british heritage.

Rant over, time to look for another job

[Thumper]

Sorry to hear that Steve, good luck in finding a new job

[Scott]

Thats Diageo for you....they shut the Chivas one in Kilwinning a couple of years after they took over.....now flattened and waiting on houses to be built on it. The acreage of the site would take thousands of houses at Johnnie Walkers, but The old Stoddard factory is in mid demolition after the credit crunch....no need for more land in Killie.

What lame excuse did they give you? the old "global downturn in sales" baloney?

I am down at Grants Distillery in Girvan every 6mths to work on the turbines and they can't keep up with demand, opened a new Gin line and rebuilt the whole whisky process!

You would think that it would be commercially and historically beneficial to keep the birthplace open.


You'll just need to open up a tuning shop (preferably one with free coffee)......hows about a Scottish branch of Regal?

[Steve]

Thats Diageo for you....they shut the Chivas one in Kilwinning a couple of years after they took over.....

Chivas isn't owned by Diageo, it was Pernod Ricard that shut them down, but it's the same deal, all these multinationals buy out the brands and then chop them into bits to make more profit.

They've not blamed the economic downturn in the briefing to the staff, but I've no doubt that will be cited when they go to press. Diageo decided that they wanted to make a £100 million saving on their worldwide business in March, in spite of posting record profits for the previous two years.

They entered a review over the Scottish and Irish business (Bushmills is part of the same leg of the company, Global Supply Scotland) and now they just pulled the rug out today. Our plant is the oldest whisky bond in the group and can't make the same volumes as the other plants, but we are geared up to make whisky for the high end of the market (some of our whisky is nearly £4000 a bottle and the products have to be hand finished) and I think they are looking at making more profit over anything else.

The trouble with these big multinationals is that they frankly don't give a **** about the heritage of the products they make, provided they can make more money year on year.

A tuning shop around here would be a nice idea Scott, you wanna do the detailing and ICE side of things?

[Thumper]

yeah could call it Rettib

[Steve]

yeah could call it Rettib

Cheers matey. Aye, there'll be a few bitter people in Killie today too, so that's appropriate. It's already been brought in Parliament apparently. I wonder if I could apply for a lottery funded Vauxhall tuning shop in Scotland. At least then folk up here wouldn't have to travel at least 500 miles to get their cars sorted

Bodgit & Leggit Autosport. Has a good ring to it

[Thumper]

pmsl, why not get a hand out, better spent on cars than bloody opera houses

[sean_dhc1]

Sorry to hear the news Steve, just when you got sorted.
Hope something turns up soon

[Smudge]

Not good news mate.......I'm sure a man of your calibre will successfully find alternative employment

[opel_bitch]

Aye bad news indeed,thought of you as soon as I heard that

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/...io/8128869.stm

[Steve]

Good to see the press are coming out on the side of the people in Kilmarnock. Don't think the town will take this without a fight

[AJBek]

Bad news Steve, the lads told me last night that you work at Jonnie Walkers. My dad used to work for Campbell distillers in Kilwinning before they got shut down due to the Pernod buyout of Chivas. Thankfully he kept his job but has to travel to paisley every day now which adds hours to his day. It is bad enough to loose your job when the company you work for is struggling due to recession, but it is much worse to loose it when they are making a profit and just want to make even more money at your expense

[Steve]

The company said today that closing Kilmarnock will save £40 million a year, but they are also saying that the profits will rise by around £68 million this year so far, so the cost of Kilmarnock only leaves a £28 million increase in profit if they keep it running, how ever will they cope??? You'd think by the way that the story was fed to the press from the outset yesterday that Johnnie Walkers was dragging the whole business down in a sea of doom and gloom and losses!!!

The figures for profit with Diageo are mind boggling, but now the number crunchers have been at the business, it's pure greed taking over. I've started chasing jobs today, the briefing they gave out yesterday said NO compulsary redundancies at the site, but they told the press no compulsary redundancies PLANNED for the next twelve months. That'll be Diageo moving the goal posts again, from other things that have gone on there since last year, its been pretty obvious that the likes of Bryan Donaghey have had this up their sleeves for a long while

I feel sorry for our management team, as well as my colleagues, as we've all had the wool pulled over our eyes this time

[Steve]

http://www.thesun.co.uk/scotsol/home...-Scotland.html

There is now a petition people can sign on line, as the local MSP is fighting to get the company to change their strategy, as the news devastated the town.

http://www.gopetition.co.uk/online/29112.html

[opel_bitch]

Signed