Standing With Newry Workers: Workers Party Demands Action at Glen Electric 

5th February 2026

The Council, the Executive, and local Westminster MPs must immediately engage with the workforce and their Trade Unions to ensure all 51 jobs threatened by restructuring at engineering company Glen Dimplex remain in Newry. Glen Dimplex, whose founder is one of the richest men on this island, is planning to move operations to Lithuania and the jobs remaining in Newry are under threat.

The Newry factory had previously stopped production of relatively low-tech storage heating and panel heaters under a commitment to the workforce that no job losses would occur as a result. The potential breach of this promise would have a major impact on both the local economy and the lives of the employees involved.

The community needs to stand by the workers and their unions to fight this decision, as Newry cannot afford to see jobs lost or workers made redundant, as happened when Glen Dimplex closed its Portadown plant in 2024 with the loss of 200 jobs.

Invest NI

Glen Dimplex has a long-standing relationship with neo-liberal quango Invest NI. In 2013 Invest NI provided the Glen Dimplex Portadown plant with £157,000 specifically for Research and Development with partial funding from the European Regional Development Fund and another £195,000 to support capital investment and the creation of 37 advanced manufacturing jobs at that time, which may or may not have migrated to Newry when they closed the Portadown plant eleven years later.

In 2013, then Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster, said “this is a very significant investment by the Glen Dimplex Group in Northern Ireland and one which will help to increase the company’s already strong position in international markets, with a new and highly advanced space and water heating solution”. As usual, throwing cash at capitalist firms in the hope of ‘job-creating’ possibilities comes a cropper when the bottom line is under threat. This is not a rational way to meet needs, to order the jobs and lives of workers, or to run an economy. (Contrary to Margaret Thatcher, alternative systems are available.)

Recent developments have led to a change in Invest NI’s dealings with Dimplex from growth-based funding to operational restructuring. In February 2024, Glen Dimplex announced a £43m reorganisation of its operations across Ireland. A key part of this was a £21m investment to repurpose the Newry site into a "Centre of Excellence" for zero-carbon technology such as heat pumps.

Invest NI's Chief Executive, Kieran Donoghue, stated they were working closely with the company to "capture opportunities for further investment" at the Newry facility.

Profit Motives

The real motivation behind the high-tech upgrade is the hope that fewer workers will be needed to produce more products at a cheaper price, which will undercut competitors. The move of low-tech manufacturing to Lithuania is similarly motivated by the pursuit of lower wages and higher profits, characterising the exploitation of cheap labour as a standard part of the corporate playbook.

Similarly, according to the playbook, big businesses go into competition with each other in a turbulent world economy with no certainty as to outcomes. Glen Dimplex has been prey to the turbulence and uncertainty of the global energy market. In August 2025. accounts filed by Glen Dimplex Europe Holdings revealed a more than 9 per cent slide in turnover and profits over the previous year - a pretax loss of €7.7 million, down from a €120.9 million profit in 2023 which was mostly derived from a €170.7 million gain on the sale of intellectual property.