I hadn't heard about any of this until I read this thread, so I have looked to see what's been in the newspapers.
It seems that the firm decided that the jobs of about 1/3 of the plant's employees would be redundant.
The other 2/3 disagreed with the terms of those redundancies and also with the selection process.

They ended up on strike.

Within a couple of weeks, the parent company has decided that not just 1/3 of the jobs are redundant but the whole plant should close.

Now, I don't know the ins-and-outs of what has gone on (who on this message board does?) but to go from 1/3 of jobs being redundant to the whole plant being redundant, within two weeks, suggests that the parent company is using criteria that are not purely about which roles are redundant.
It's certainly not as clear-cut as some seem happy to believe.

If you look at the very end of what I originally said, you'll see a squiggly thing like this - ?

It is known as a question mark (also known as an interrogation point, interrogation mark, question point, query or eroteme), is a punctuation mark that replaces the full stop (period) at the end of an interrogative sentence in English and many other languages.

And you call me stupid?

Hahahaha.

That is the silliest attempt at saving face I have ever seen.

Asking remaining employees to change their terms and conditions could be seen as part of the entire restructuring package for that site or company. For instance, it could be that without the proposals for the remaining workers, another, say, 10 or 20 people may have to be made redundant. You may or may not think that's OK, but losing so many workers may materially affect the factory's ability to run.

If the union rejects the proposals for the remaining workers then it could indeed be seen as the factory is unviable and they simply cannot run it as there will be too few people, therefore it would be more economical to do their manufacturing elsewhere.

However it could ALSO be that the management are trying to strongarm the unions by issuing threats. Unfortunately no-one knows this, except of course for the management. We also do not know HOW the management are handling this, and to what extent negotiations with the union has taken place. Either way it should not be automatically assumed that redundancies and changes are being implemented for the sake of it so that the management can get more money. Unfortunately too many people are unwilling to look beyond that.

Saving face?

Look, I'll type this slowly, in case you have a problem reading, although I do realise that comprehension is not your strongest suit.

You have long maintained that management know best, especially if management also happens to own the business. So to that end, I will pose the question once more, although to assist you in better forming an opinion and in the vain hope that I may get something approaching a coherent answer. Here goes:

"Do you think that unions should simply accept management decisions to reduce headcount, in the name of retaining profitability or mainting (or even improving) margins, when those cutting costs are awarding themselves large bonusues?"

Quite, and by exactly the same token, too many people are happy to simply blame Unite and are unwilling to look beyond that.

The above is yet further proof, that you

a) read into things what you want, with little regard to what is actually written
b) form opinions based on very little.

I have never said that in 100% of cases, management know best, or are 100% straight. You get your bad eggs and you get your good employers. As someone who has a business with hardly any staff turnover - nobody has resigned in over three years - I'm one of the latter.

Neither have I ever said that anyone should accept decisions or opinions without asking questions. I ask questions and challenge people all the time, so why wouldn't anyone else? Clearly this is what unions SHOULD be doing, and I have never, ever said anything different.

What I do object to, however, is people (like you, for instance) who put all these matters into one simple formula, universally applied...

Management = BAD
Workers/Unions = GOOD.

It simply does not work like that, and the sooner people accept this, and by that I mean EVERYONE, then we will all get along just that little bit better. The problem is, there are always people about who let their pride and opinions get in the way of facts, and in this case in particular, I don't believe ONE fact about what is actually happening at MMP has been divulged, which sort of makes this thread, well, a bit pointless.

Lack of facts and public information makes any decision to blame Unite - or the management - for this situation null and void in my opinion.

As someone noted recently: when did you last read a story about a trades union that was anything other than a slag off.

But what does that tell you - really?

Are you fecking serious? Honestly?