AGENCY workers, some of whom were laid off in February, started work at BMW Mini yesterday morning as a new shift began to cope with an upturn in demand.
The 250 workers are on a new 11-shift system, working two shifts a day, Monday to Friday.
They started work at the Cowley plant at 5am.
As part of the system, the agency workers and other staff will also complete one shift on a Saturday. There will also be an occasional Sunday shift, the first of which will start this week.
BMW Mini confirmed that staff had started working on the new shift system, but declined to comment further.
The new shift started after a four-day shutdown over the weekend, caused by a strike at a supplier of steering components in France.
Some of the agency workers hired lost their jobs in February when 850 staff were laid off because of a drop in sales.
Father-of-one Jamie Macfarlane, who lost his job at BMW Mini earlier this year, was not one of the agency workers selected for the new shift.
The 28-year-old said: “I don’t think I would go back even if I was asked because I would be worried about the level of protection I would have as an employee.”
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