THERE were chaotic scenes at the Lite-On factory yesterday as workers reacted angrily to confirmation that around 230 of them were to be made redundant.

Furious workers flooded from a side door at the Mossend plant to speak to waiting press and media following a meeting with management at 3pm, at which operations director Donald Coots told them about the job losses.

Some workers refused to give their names, claiming they had been told not to speak to the press, while others said they now expected to be sacked anyway and had nothing to lose.

There was anger and disappointment but little surprise among the staff, who said rumours about cutbacks had been circulating for days.

Mr Drew Ritchie, 28, from Mossend, who had worked at the plant for seven months, said: ''There was talk about this all week but the management told us it was all lies and rumours and that anybody caught spreading the rumours would be sacked. But it's the company that has been lying all along.''

Another worker said that even yesterday morning factory management tried to play down the news, broken by The Herald, as staff arrived to start their shifts.

She said: ''Even this morning they were telling us it wasn't as bad as the newspapers were making out and that it was being exaggerated by the media. But now we know it is just as bad.''

Workers described the atmosphere inside the plant as ''terrible'', claiming they had effectively downed tools.

One worker said: ''There has been no work done in there today. Our boss came out and said we weren't doing ourselves any favours by not working but there was just no motivation to work. They promised us heaven and earth when we started here, a lot of people actually left jobs to come here, and now it's all come crashing down.''

Another worker said: ''I will go back in and sit down at the assembly line and collect my wages but I won't be doing a stroke of work. They can't expect us to go in and work for them and just wait for them to decide when we will be out the door.''

Some workers said they would not be going back to work at all.

Mr Andrew Sweeney, 24, from New Stevenston, said: ''I'm not going back. I've only been working there two months and I'm going to get sacked anyway. I just feel like going home.''

As these comments were made, however, a rumour swept through the crowd of workers that management inside the plant had ordered staff to return to work and that if they continued to refuse to work they would be sacked on the spot.

As the crowd gradually began to trickle back into the factory, workers continued to speak of their anger and disappointment.

Mr Donald Campbell, 35, who had been at Lite-On for only five weeks, said: ''I had been offered another job when I took this and I asked them if I would be secure and they said there were no problems and no reason to worry.''

Ms Louise Fallon, 22, from Coatbridge, who has worked at Lite-On since October last year, said: ''It is terrible. A new company opens up and you get a job thinking you are secure and it's going to be there for ever then this happens. I can't believe it.''

Mrs Patricia Docherty, a 38-year-old mother of three from Coatbridge, who has worked there nine months, said: ''I feel totally sick. I just bought my boy a PC at Christmas time and I've still got to pay it up.''

Mr Martin McCourt, 19, who moved to Mossend from Inverness to take up a job at Lite-On in December, said: ''It's bad for me but it's worse for the people with families to look after. I mean the money's not very good here but at least it's a job.''

In the surrounding communities, too, there was dismay and disappointment at the latest jobs set-back to hit the Lanarkshire economy. At the JobCentre in nearby Bellshill, the news was met as a further hammer blow to the job seekers.

One man said: ''It's hard enough to get work around here and this won't make it any easier.''

In Mossend, one woman who works at another electronics firm in Coatbridge said she feared for the knock-on effects of the Lite-On announcement. She said: ''I know my company had been hoping to get orders from Lite-On so it's bound to have a knock-on effect on other workers in the area.''