UNION officials representing workers at Viasystems' two plants on Tyneside have met the management and receivers to discuss the hopes of saving 1,600 jobs.

The company went into receivership on Thursday, threatening the future of its entire workforce, only two weeks after claiming that only one of its plants, which are at Longbenton and South Shields, would have to close.

The AEEU shop stewards and the receivers yesterday spent an hour considering the future of the company and its workers

Mel Barras, regional officer for the AEEU said: "We are very annoyed at the way that Viasystems' owners announced that the company was going into receivership from their base in London without having the decency to inform the workforce and their representatives."

He said: "We would expect them to come down here, show their faces and address the workforce."

However, Mr Barras said the receivers were confident that the European PCB Group, which owns Viasystems, could find a buyer for the company. "We will be giving them our full cooperation to achieve that aim. We will be arranging meetings with local MPs and councillors to see if there is any way they can assist, both locally and by national Government."

Mr Barras said that, to the best of his knowledge, staff would be paid for their work, but it was inevitable that pensions and savings schemes would be frozen. There was anger among the workforce that has strived to keep jobs alive, even accepting reduced working hours in order to keep their livelihoods.

Graeme Slator, 38, a shop steward and process operator from Jarrow, said: "The mood inside is one of anger. People are frustrated and upset. They feel as though they have been kept in the dark all along and feel as though they haven't been told."

Davey Hall, Northern regional secretary for the AEEU, warned that manufacturing was becoming an "endangered species" in Britain.

He said: "Over the last two weeks we have witnessed major companies making job cuts - Marconi, British Airways, Gill Airways and now Viasystems.

"We have lost 250,000 manufacturing jobs this year and we are destined to lose the same again during the next few months. Manufacturing is fast becoming an endangered species."