This is what happens when foreign companies own British industry
MAY & BAKER, the British chemical company started by John May and William Baker in Wandsworth, London in 1851, moved to Dagenham in Essex in 1934.
The company, in fact, first became French-owned in 1922 when it was bought by Etablissement Poulenc-Frères, but it was a very hands-off ownership and the integrity of the firm was never compromised nor were the national interests of Britain. Even the name May & Baker remained the same.
For 65 years the local workforce ensured the company’s prosperity grew and grew but then things started to change.
In 1999 the company merged with Germany firm Hoechst and changed its name to Aventis.
In 2000 the company’s Research & Development Department was moved out – the first sign that the future of the Rainham Road South site was in doubt.
In 2004 Aventis merged with French firm Sanofi-Synthélabo and the Dagenham workers now found themselves employed by a company called Sanofi-Aventis . . . until now.
This month the workforce was told that manufacturing at the plant will be phased out and around 500 staff will be made redundant because operations are being transferred to France.
“This is what happens when British industry is sold off to foreign buyers,” Nick Griffin the British National Party’s Prospective Parliamentary Candidate for Barking told a local meeting.
“The owners put the needs of their fellow countrymen before ours, which is completely understandable. Europe is in recession and companies want to look after their own. If you’re a French firm and sales are slumping so jobs need to be cut, you don’t start laying off workers in Paris – you lay them off in Dagenham.
“We have to bring all British industry back under British ownership and we need make protecting existing manufacturing jobs and investing in new manufacturing jobs our priority,” he said.
One employee of 26 years, told the Dagenham Post:
“I was so upset and shocked when they announced it.
”I started working there because my dad did, and other employees have uncles and cousins all working under one roof.”
The company said that employees will be offered the chance to relocate and continue working for Sanofi-Aventis at another site . . . . overseas.
