MSP vows to fight for ‘McAlpine’ jobs

Apr 3 2008 By Caireen Kelly

AN MSP blasted as “short-sighted” this week a construction firm’s decision to axe 750 Lanarkshire jobs.

Michael McMahon was speaking after construction group Carillion announced plans to close their offices at Tannochside Park and transfer clerical and back-office posts to other branches of the company.

Carillion bought builders Alfred McAlpine earlier this year for £572million.

Part of the deal involved the acquisition of McAlpine’s business services headquarters in Tannochside.

Staff there provide administrative support for the construction side of the business.

Carillion said that, since the take-over, they had found “considerable scope” to consolidate their office space and remove duplication of back-office and support function activities.

A spokesman for the company added: “We will now be entering into consultation with the 750 people affected by this decision.

“We are looking to redeploy as many of these people as possible with a view to keeping redundancies to a minimum.

“The number of redundancies will be overshadowed by the number of jobs that will be created as a result of Carillion’s growth.”

Carillion say they have a number of offices north of the border to which staff could be redeployed.

These include premises on sites including in Bellshill, Bishopbriggs, Cambuslang, Edinburgh and Dundee.

The Tannochside operation will close completely.

Mr McMahon, MSP for Hamilton North and Bellshill, said that their decision was “short-sighted and a huge disappointment”.

“The construction sector in Scotland is already very buoyant and there is much more work on its way,” he added.

“In Lanarkshire alone, there are already plans to develop Ravenscraig and add extensions to both the M8 and M74.

“That is not forgetting the contracts that will be up for grabs to prepare for the arrival of the Commonwealth Games in 2014 in an area that is within 10 miles of Lanarkshire.

“I feel that this company may well live to regret this decision in the long run as they will be unable to compete for this work and their reputation could be badly damaged.

“This is another big loss to the area and I will be writing to the Scottish Government to support the workforce and encourage the company to have a change of heart.”

Carillion last year announced profits before tax of £94.4m.

Central Scotland nationalist MSP Alex Neil has written to Enterprise Minister Jim Mather, asking him to do all he can to save the threatened jobs.

He added: “Carillion is a company that has just announced record profits.

“It is little wonder that the employees said they felt betrayed by this move.”

This is the second jobs blow to hit Lanarkshire in less than a month.

In March, it was announced that 80 jobs were to go at Hewden Stuart’s Uddingston headquarters.