UNION leaders have expressed serious concerns over job losses at a factory network which employs more than 150 disabled people in East Lancashire.

Remploy was today expected to announce seven factories around the country were to close with the loss of 1,500 jobs.

The Government-backed firm, which employs 6,500 disabled people, has said that there will be no compulsory redundancies as a result of the closures.

Although the company's sites in Blackburn and at Amalgamated Packaging in Burnley are not thought to be among the doomed factories, local unions are concerned about the move.

"We are very concerned. It may not be us affected this time but that doesn't mean we couldn't be hit in the future," said John Phillips of the GMB union in Blackburn who represents around 65 members at the firm's Bank Top factory. "Remploy is like a club in many ways and the people there stick together. They will be feeling for their colleagues in other parts of the country."

In Burnley, local GMB officer Tom Fallows said the factories should be taking on more people instead of closing.

"There are people many people there who couldn't make it into mainstream employment," he said. "The whole ideas is that Remploy factories offer disabled people a sheltered environment where they can go to work, do their best and be rewarded for it."

Mr Fallows said that although site in the Accrington Road, Burnley, had taken on three new employees recently, there were many more disabled people in East Lancashire who would welcome the chance to work there.

"Remploy should be trying to create jobs, not lose them."

Nationally the GMB union has slammed the Government for the cuts and the timing of the announcement the day after Remembrance Sunday.

"This is a staggering betrayal of thousands of disabled workers and of the memory of the brave men and women in whose name the factories fit for heroes were first built," said national offical Phil Davies.

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