When Remploy announced plans for a shake-up of the organisation last month, hundreds of disabled workers in the region were plunged into uncertainty. Bosses said they would close loss-making factories to concentrate on helping disabled workers into mainstream employment. In the lastest in a series of articles, Catherine Jewitt talks to workers about how they believe the proposals will affect them.

BRIAN DAY had hoped it would be third time lucky when he joined a Remploy plant in the region.

He joined the company in 1980 at its Halifax branch, in West Yorkshire.

When his family moved to County Durham, he transferred to the Newton Aycliffe site, which later closed, and forced a move to nearby Spennymoor.

He faces yet another move because his future as a cleaner at the closure-threatened plant is uncertain. Mr Day, 55, of Gilpin Road, Newton Aycliffe, said: "I do not want to move again, I feel happy and settled at Remploy.

"I have lots of friends there who understand me, I do not want to leave, and thinking of a new job and new people is quite scary."

Mr Day is severely disabled, with limited use of one arm, and he has speech and memory problems. When he was young, he tried to work in mainstream employment, but was unable to settle into a job until he joined Remploy. He said: "When I left school, I never thought I would get a job, but Remploy came to my rescue.

"I want to work for a living. If I am without a job, I will go round knocking on the doors of every factory until one of the bosses gives in and sets me on.

"But none of them would be like Remploy."

His mother, Margaret Lovelady, said: "He has worked in mainstream employment before and it did not work. He was very unhappy and I do not want him to go back to that.

"He has always felt valued and understood at Remploy and worked hard to earn money to buy what he wants. It gives him pride and independence I doubt he could find elsewhere."

Bob Warner, Remploy's chief executive, said every job in a Remploy factory costed more than £20,000 and, for the same money, the company can place four people in mainstream employment.