UNION leaders and workers have expressed outrage at claims that 90 more jobs are under threat at Rolls-Royce - less than two weeks after the engine giant reported record profits and orders.

Employees say they have been told the jobs may have to go at the Barnoldswick site - Pendle's biggest employer - as part of cost-cutting moves and there are fears that even more jobs could be under threat.

The firm has said that it needs to make savings throughout its business and confirmed it had been in talks with unions at Barnoldswick.

The job cuts warning comes just a fortnight after the firm unveiled record orders and its biggest ever profits.

The firm saw its order book beat the £10 billion mark last year and profits jump 18 per cent to £325 million.

A spokesman said that although the financial figures announced recently were good, the industry had entered a flat period.

"We have got a lot of orders but we need to carry them out more efficiently. We need to reduce costs and we are looking at ways to do that," he said.

The spokesman stressed that if job losses were necessary the firm would try to achieve them through early retirement and redeployment although nothing had yet been decided.

But unions have attacked management and say that 52 workers who have recently left or are leaving the site through voluntary severance after an earlier cost-cutting drive would account for any reduction in workload.

"I think it is fair to say people here are disgusted by this," said John Boardman, AEEU convenor at the site which employs more than 1,200. "We have been told that jobs could go unless cost savings are made in other ways such as reducing overtime payments and introducing new working patterns.

"They have said they will come back to us with proposals in a couple of weeks which we will listen to but we will oppose any compulsory redundancies. There has been a reduction in workload at the site but we believe that has been taken up by the 52 employees who are leaving and that there is no need for more cuts."

Mr Boardman said the cost-cutting proposals were aimed at the fan systems division part of the Barnoldswick site and there were concerns that more jobs could be at risk in the two other departments based there.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.