WORKERS at East Lancashire’s Rolls-Royce factories say they remain confident about their futures despite its largest stakeholder pledging to slash costs.

US hedge fund ValueAct, which has become Rolls-Royce’s biggest shareholder, is urging the engine manufacturer to accelerate a rollout of cost-cuttings within its core aerospace business.

The fund, which disclosed a 5.4 per cent stake in the company on Friday, raised the spectre of more redundancies.

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Jon Brough, Unite union representative at the Barnoldswick plant, said bosses had wanted 120 “shop floor” jobs to go this year —which includes machinists, fitters, inspectors, tool makers and hands-on-roles — while around 60 positions have already been lost by workers taking voluntary redundancy.

Staff have already agreed to make concessions in their contracts to keep their jobs and voted to accept a proposal to work two hours a week unpaid.

Mr Brough said: “Internally the company has not made any comment about it.

“If cost cuts mean potential attacks on terms and conditions or job losses in the name of efficiency then that is worrying.

“The shop floor voted 95 per cent in favour of a shorter working week.

“That mitigated a potential of 40 job losses or more for six months.

“If we get the improvements in efficiency that should mitigate all our job losses going forward, providing the workload stays the same.”

Last month, the firm reported a 32 per cent slump in profits for the first half of the year, with revenue also down three per cent – from £6.5 billion to £6.3bn.

Earlier in the same month, Rolls, issued its third profit warning in the 12 months.

Mr Brough said: “I can’t imagine this having any impact at Barnoldswick because the products we make, the gas turbines, are core to the engines.

“They are very complex and difficult to get suppliers to make them and then they have key intellectual properties which Rolls-Royce wouldn’t want to share.”

The stock market welcomed the fund’s announcements, with shares jumping four per cent, or 34p to 828p after ValueAct Capital Management took its 5.4 per cent stake.