British unions vowed to fight plans by French carmaker PSA Peugeot Citroen to close its plant in central England with the loss of 2,300 jobs.
The world's sixth-largest carmaker, which has been battling with sluggish sales at its main markets in western Europe, said yesterday it could no longer afford to carry on investing in the Ryton plant near Coventry due to high costs.
Union leaders, who met workers at the plant and the government today, reacted angrily to the news, accusing the company of "corporate greed" and said they would consider taking industrial action.
"We believe that the plant is profitable, in fact the company have not denied that," Des Quinn, of the Transport and General Workers Union, told reporters.
"All the company has said is that it's more expensive to make the car here so they want to make it somewhere else to make even more profit. We believe our members recognise that and will fight to do something about it."
He said industrial action was "certainly one option" although there were no immediate plans.
PSA says Ryton's distance from suppliers on the European mainland means its costs are higher than those of any other plant in the carmaker's group.
Modernising the factory to enable it to build a new model would cost €250 million and closing the plant was the only viable economic decision, the firm said.
"Even after these investments, Ryton would have stayed the most expensive plant in our organisation," chief executive Jean-Martin Folz said.
Last year saw the collapse of MG Rover which cost 5,000 jobs while US automaker Ford, which owns the luxury brand Jaguar, cut jobs and scaled back production in England in 2004.