‘JLR supply chain workers are really struggling’

“I haven’t been on wages for the past two weeks. I’m now dipping into savings, money that I’ve squirreled away for retirement, with no insight into exactly when this will be over.”

Rich Mulligan, 63, is a stock control worker at Leadec in Coventry, a wheel and tyre facility that supplies Jaguar Land Rover (JLR).

He said the factory “effectively closed down” about three weeks ago, days after JLR was attacked by cybercriminals on 31 August. There have been growing concerns some of JLR’s suppliers could collapse within a week due to the ongoing shutdown.

“It was a slowdown at first,” Mr Mulligan said. “Our first thing that we noticed was that we couldn’t get on to the JLR systems.”

Leadec have been contacted for a response.

With JLR being the firm’s primary customer, it gradually “became clearer and clearer we just had less work to do”, he said.

About 30,000 people are directly employed at JLR’s UK plants, with about a further 100,000 working for supply chain firms.

Since the manufacturer was forced to pause production at its West Midlands and Merseyside plants, there have been fears hundreds of supply chain workers could be laid off.

On Saturday, the government announced a £1.5m JLR loan guarantee, with Business Secretary Peter Kyle stating an “explicit intention that that is to support the supply chain”.

However, with production not expected to resume until 1 October at the earliest, industry experts say some suppliers are on the “brink of collapse”.

Mr Mulligan estimated there were about 200 full-time employees at Leadec’s Coventry factory, including agency workers.

The temporary staff were released first after the hack, he said, followed by permanent workers.

“Because a lot of companies in the supply chain have not been paid by JLR, for five days in a three-month period, you’re entitled to statutory lay-off pay of £39 a day,” he said.

“Once we’d used up that five days pay, effectively we are technically employed by the company but there is no work for us, so it’s a lay-off situation.”

The stock controller, who is also Unite shop steward, said Leadec had set up a foodbank to support its workers facing extreme hardship.

“I’m a bit older, my mortgage is paid, my kids are grown up,” he said. “These are low-paid jobs, we’re talking just above minimum wage.

“People have got rent, they’ve got mortgages, they’ve got children, these are the people that are really, really struggling.

“At the end of the day, the fault really lies with a very greedy bunch of cyber hackers,” he added. “I’m not holding my company responsible for this.”

He hopes to see the £1.5bn loan go towards keeping the supply chain running, and to workers left without wages.

“We needed the money two weeks ago,” he said, claiming he had already seen colleagues resign to seek alternative work.

“Their skills [are] walking out the door and this we don’t need… But people are going do what they have to do to feed their families.”

Steve Whitmarsh, who operates Solihull-based leasing and fleet management service, Run Your Fleet, described the government’s loan announcement as “very welcome”.

“It’s great that they’ve stepped up to the plate and offered some support,” he said.

While his firm has not been directly financially impacted, several customers with JLR vehicles have not been able to get hold of parts for repairs, he said.

But he added the government had now put “the onus back on JLR to support their supply chain”.

Steve Morley, chair of the Confederation of British Metalforming, told BBC Politics Midlands the supply chain was at a “cliff edge”, and some businesses had told him they had less than 10 days of cash supply left.