CEMENT workers facing redundancy in four months' time are furious at being offered a long-term stake in their company's future.

Staff at French conglomerate Lafarge's Blue Circle Works, at Eastgate, County Durham, have accused their bosses of insensitivity and pulled a poster advertising the deal from their canteen notice board.

The company, which told its 147 employees in January that the profitable plant would close in July, is inviting them to join its new LEA (Lafarge en action) 2002 stock ownership plan.

One worker said yesterday: "Everybody is disgusted. It is ridiculous. We can only join if we sign up for three or five years and we are not going to be here."

French owned Lafarge has angered its UK workers by refusing to negotiate with a mystery bidder interested in buying the plant.

Only last month the company, which took over Blue Circle last year, outraged staff by removing familiar signs from outside the 37-year-old plant and from its fleet of cement tankers.

The Blue Circle logos were replaced by Lafarge Cement UK signs - even though the plant has just weeks to live.

To add insult to injury workers were also given a company mug printed with the new brand name.

Talking about the latest move, Weardale county councillor John Shuttleworth said: "This company is showing no sensitivity at all.

"They are dealing with people's livelihoods and they don't seem to have any consideration for their feelings."

A Lafarge UK spokesman said: "This share scheme is open to Lafarge employees around the world. It would not be fair or right is we did not let Weardale employees know about the opportunity as they are eligible, particularly as a third of them have already expressed interest in remaining with the business."

The spokesman added that 49 Eastgate workers had applied for one or more of 160 job opportunities Lafarge has identified in its UK operations and not a handful, as unions claim.

But an employee, who asked not to be named, was sceptical. He said: "They will be lucky to get 20. People don't want to go."