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Activists attend Rolls Royce recruitment event

Terri Dactal | 09.11.2004 18:55 | Anti-militarism | Oxford

After the die-in event last week, four people went on to attend a recruitment event that Rolls Royce were holding at the university.

We felt it was important to have some kind of presence at the event because Rolls Royce is one of the larger UK arms companies, supplying weapons to a number of countries including parts for the Hawk jets which were sold to Indonesia. They also make parts for the UK's Weapons of Mass Destruction (Trident submarines).
We went into the recruitment event, which took the form of a presentation by a few Rolls Royce workers. We had some hastily-made leaflets with some info about the company to hand out to students attending the event to make sure they knew why we were there. Then we just sat down among the audience and asked questions at relevent bits during the presentation.

It went well in that we raised some issues that would not otherwise have been mentioned (for example the effects of the aerospace industry on climate change, the profits they make out of war, Rolls Royce's role in the terrorisation of people in East Timor). The company representative in charge of the presentation had the attitude that 'we're not here to discuss politics' and 'if I thought the company was that bad I wouldn't be in this job would I?' Some of the potential new recruits were interested in why we were there, but quite a lot seemed to already be aware of Rolls Royce's dodgy dealings and not be very concerned.

There is a timetable on the company website of recruitment talks they are giving at universities around the country - worth a look.

Terri Dactal

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

er wot uni?

09.11.2004 20:49

nice one, but where was this?

???


Where are you?

09.11.2004 21:00

This is good. It's important that companies don't come in to universities and assume all students are dumb and pursuing the almighty dollar (hopefully?)

It's very easy, when you get to the middle of your career to blind yourself to the important issues. We need students to remind these careerists that there's more to life than working for the man.

Which university do you attend?

mini mouse


It was Oxford

09.11.2004 23:09

...I assume, since this story's on the Oxford newswire (as well as here in the UK newswire).

JD


Wow - i thought they made cars

11.12.2004 10:17

Wow - I had thought that Rolls Royce just made large gas guzzling tank-sized cars for the superrich. Well I never. I knew they made jet engines for civil and mil aviation. Would the article author like to add a link to a description of RR's military arms activities?

Don Jon