It was a Christmas present the workers at Vauxhall's Luton car plant could have done without. Some of the men knocking off their shift at the plant on Tuesday afternoon heard the news on the radio that car production was to cease at the end of the first quarter in 2002. Other workers found out from journalists waiting at the factory gate that they would be losing their jobs.
In Luton, as elsewhere in Britain in recent months, thousands of workers in the manufacturing industry have been dealt a "bolt out of the blue" and told their jobs are no longer sustainable in a fiercely competitive European market.
On top of the 2,000 job losses announced by General Motors, Vauxhall's US parent company - and the loss of up to 4,000 ancillary jobs in the area - Ford will cease car production at its Dagenham car plant in Essex in 2002, with the loss of 1,300 jobs. And in what one manufacturing union leader described as the industry's "blackest week", in a few days' time thousands of textile workers in Derbyshire, shipyard workers on Merseyside and steelworkers in Wales are to lose their jobs.
Vauxhall has enjoyed a long and illustrious history at Luton, after moving to the Bedfordshire site from London 95 years ago, and the plant has particular significance for people in Ireland and the Irish community in Britain. In the 1950s and 1960s, when Irish emigration to Britain was at its highest, Irish men could turn up at the factory gates and get a job and join a union almost without question.
As a result, Luton became a "very, very Irish town", according to Bronwen Walter, who has written her Ph.D on Irish migration to Luton and Bolton and is reader in social and cultural geography at Anglia Polytechnic University.
Many Irish men and women moved to Luton from London after the second World War and a popular myth is that Irish men building the M1 motorway through Bedfordshire stayed on in Luton. But most of the Irish workers at Vauxhall, says Dr Walter, arrived at the plant through word of mouth.
"Word went back to Ireland that Luton was the place to come to get good, skilled, well paid jobs", she says
The miserable news at Luton has prompted fears about job security at three other car plants across Britain.
Up to 1,700 workers at Nissan's Sunderland plant, which is one the most efficient but most expensive car production sites in Europe, are waiting to hear whether the Japanese firm will build the new Micra model in Britain or switch the operation to France.
Similarly, there is a question mark over job security at the Honda plant in Swindon after the Japanese firm announced last month that it did not expect its European operations to return to profit until 2003, a year later than planned. And despite rescuing the Longbridge car plant in Birmingham after BMW pulled out this year, there is some doubt about MG Rover's ability to survive in the car market when it produces only 200,000 cars a year.
The problems at Luton may prove an unwelcome distraction for Mr Tony Blair ahead of a possible general election next year if the Conservatives and the unions have anything to do with it. Sure, General Motors insisted, the strength of sterling was only "a factor" in its decision, citing over-capacity in the global car market as the main reason for restructuring its European production.
But the shadow trade and industry secretary, Mr David Heathcoat-Amory, moved swiftly on this week's announcement, accusing Labour of being "caught unawares" by the closure despite warnings about excessive regulation and high taxes. Shop stewards and workers at Luton highlighted what they believed was the root of the manufacturing industry's problems: a conviction that it is easier to sack British workers than their European counterparts.
That belief may spring from anti-European feeling in Britain. But it was supported by one academic, Prof Garel Rhys of the University of Cardiff, who said it was easier to end production in Britain because although flexible tax and labour practices make it easy to attract business to Britain, they also make it easy for business to leave.
Shocked and angry workers in Luton will find little comfort in that as they mull over their future prospects this Christmas.
Angry workers at Vauxhall's Luton plant last night staged a demonstration against the decision to close the operation. About 50 workers stood outside the plant demanding to know why it had been sacrificed with the loss of 2,000 jobs.
The Trade and Industry Secretary, Mr Stephen Byers, told the House of Commons that GM's decision to close the plant was "a bitter blow". He said the Government would work with the employment service and local employers to help car workers find new jobs.
Commenting on the fact that some workers discovered they were to lose their jobs during a local radio bulletin, Mr Byers said: "This is not the way, at the beginning of the 21st century, to treat dedicated and hardworking employees."
Earlier, up to 200 workers at the plant staged a temporary walkout, disgusted by the closure and the way in which the story was leaked before workers were informed. Vauxhall said it had lost production because of the walkout, but a spokesman for the Amalgamated Engineering and Electrical Union (AEEU) said the demonstration was entirely expected. "It is clearly an emotional reaction to a very difficult situation," the spokesman said. "It is not surprising they are expressing their frustration and their extreme anger in this way."
rdonnelly@irish-times.ie