UNIONS are to launch a campaign aimed at saving 900 jobs at Vauxhall s Ellesmere Port plant, including the threat of industrial action. A mass meeting will be held at the factory in Cheshire to decide the next moves against job-cutting plans. The meeting

UNIONS are to launch a campaign aimed at saving 900 jobs at Vauxhall's Ellesmere Port plant, including the threat of industrial action.

A mass meeting will be held at the factory in Cheshire to decide the next moves against job-cutting plans.

The meeting will coincide with another at Peugeot's Ryton factory, near Coventry, where 2,300 jobs are also set to be axed.

At Ellesmere Port, a mass meeting between unions and workers will be held when officials will advise their members not to accept voluntary redundancy until the long-term future of the plant is secure.

Union leaders also called on the British public to boycott Vauxhall cars if they refuse to offer those assurances on the plant's future.

Amicus general secretary Derek Simpson said: "They can't insist we buy the cars - that will have more effect on Vauxhall than anything else.

"The biggest threat to this company is if people in this country do not accept this kind of treatment by a global company."

He added: "If this plant ever ceases to produce cars, ultimately we will advise people 'don't buy Vauxhall'.

"If we want to stop global companies decimating our economies and decimating ordinary people's lives, then let's exercise something that happens in other countries. I would make an appeal that if the British people can see what is happening here and decide they are not prepared to put up with it, then I would invite them to join us in not buying Vauxhall cars.