A WORKER has attacked managers at a Droitwich firm for an "out of the blue" 99 job losses.

Works Council representative Darren Pollock said employees were "stunned" after hearing their jobs at Doncasters Precision Castings were going.

Mr Pollock, who is among those affected, disputed managing director Paul Cooksey's claims in yesterday's Evening News that the workers who had "at risk" letters, would be informed following a 30-day consultation if their jobs were safe or not.

"The 99 are already let off," he said.

The former foundry operative also refuted Mr Cooksey's claims that the redundancies "had not come as a surprise".

"Just six weeks ago he told us there would be no more redundancies this year," he said.

"This is out of the blue. We could not believe it and are stunned."

He added that this week, before the announcement, workers had even been working overtime.

"There are a lot of angry people here. We feel we have been badly treated."

Mr Pollock said that he would be seeking legal advice over the matter and may take the dispute to the conciliation service ACAS.

The firm's management was unavailable for comment at the time of going to press as it was holding meetings regarding the job cuts.

The company, which makes blades and vanes for industrial gas turbines, said it was scaling down production due to a reduction in the volume of work.

Mr Cooksey said the company's customers, the power regeneration firms, had recently reduced their forecasted requirements for next year and this meant a knock-on effect for manning levels.