Remploy

I work at Remploy Hartlepool and no one has approached the employees in my factory to question whether we want to work in mainstream or not. My colleagues and I are happy working at the factory. Many have worked between ten and 30 years for the company.

Younger employees are upset and concerned about their future employment at the factory.

Most of the workforce live in Hartlepool and use public transport for their journeys to and from the factory. They are most concerned about what will happen if they are offered mainstream work outside the Hartlepool area. Many employees are also concerned at how they will cope working in mainstream employment, especially those with more severe physical disabilities, hearing impairment and mental health problems. We would be very grateful for some answers to our concerns.

B Blakelock, Station Town, Wingate.

I WORK at Remploy in Spennymoor where we have sweated blood for this company.

The closure sickens me.

We believed we were working to help create money to employ other disabled people who need the same opportunity employment as Remploy gave us. Those hopes are now being cruelly dashed, as if we do not matter one iota.

What is more important? Giving disabled people opportunity, secure worthwhile employment and hope for the future where before they had none? Or, taking money from employing disabled people in Remploy factories to employ people out of work claiming incapacity benefit?

You guessed it!

Both the Government and Remploy no longer care about disabled people. They say they do, but their actions say otherwise. I and my colleagues do not want to be sitting around the house on state benefits at taxpayers' expense. That is the grim alternative.

BM Waddingham, Bishop Auckland.

HAVING worked at Remploy Spennymoor for nearly 30 years now, I cannot even begin to put into words the feeling that having hope for a normal working life, being independent and free, means to me.

Free from sitting at home on state benefits like a vegetable, slowly decaying without any hope for the future.

Being given a chance to work in the Remploy factory in Spennymoor has changed all that. This is one of the reasons why severely disabled people feel so strongly about Remploy factories. Because they know what it feels like at the bottom of the barrel, with no future or hope.

How can we expect able bodied directors to understand, let alone care about this?

Because they don't. And with a vengeance.

These same people wish to close almost half of the factories in the UK, rather than give up their company cars or expense accounts paid for by the taxpayer.

It's not disabled people that are a burden to the taxpayer, it's able bodied senior management.

Alan Corbett, Spennymoor.

I AM a severely disabled employee and have been for nigh on 30 years, firstly at Remploy Halifax, then Aycliffe and Spennymoor. Working in these Remploy factories because no one else would employ me has enriched my life beyond my wildest dreams.

I left school with the realisation no one would employ me, or I might never be able to hold a job down. I felt consigned to the scrapheap. I had no future.

Can you imagine what that feels like?

But Remploy came to my rescue, offering me a job when no one else would even listen. I had the dignity of earning a wage - paying my way, living life like anyone else, rather than live on state benefits. Now the Government wants to put a stop to it.

Remploy is set to change in a big way and not for the better! Not at the bottom where disabled people have looked out for and supported each other, but at the top where they just couldn't give a damn.

Help us!

Brian Day, Newton Aycliffe.