Workers criticised both unions and BMW managers for the way the job cuts were handled.

Axed workers left the Cowley plant early today having found out they had lost their jobs an hour before the end of their shifts.

Many claimed they had been kept in the dark until the very last moment.

All 850 temporary staff were separated from their colleagues and told they no longer had a job. Many feared for the future.

Father-of-one Roger Freitis, 26, from Cowley, said: “It’s not just the job cuts, it’s how they did it which is disgraceful.

“An hour before the end of our shift they round us up and say we are going.

“No redundancy, nothing, just an hour’s notice.

“We’ve been here all weekend asking what is going to happen and they say nothing.

“I’ve been here for two years. I’ve been paying money to the union and asking what is going to happen with my job.

“I’ve got a mortgage and a child. I don’t know what to do.”

BMW said staff had not been notified at the last minute, but were given a week’s notice.

Some staff drove off from the plant with a squeal of tyres, others beeped their horns angrily.

Assembly-line worker Adam Mason, 30, from Oxford, said: “Clearly someone knew this was going to happen. It seems they have been having meetings so someone must have known.

“We came into work on Friday thinking it was a normal shift.

“Then we get put together and told this news an hour before we go home. People were very angry in there.

“Where has the union been all this time? Why did I bother paying my subscription? They did nothing for us.

“They kept us all in the dark and we haven’t been able to prepare for losing our jobs.”

“The Government has done nothing in this recession apart from hand money to the banks and bankers. Why can’t they help us?”

Father-of-one Bart Hryniow, 25, from Headington, said: “The union has been speaking to them for three weeks and we all get told an hour before we leave.”

A 43-year-old worker said: “All week we’ve been asking questions about our jobs, but they told us nothing.

“I’ve been here nearly five years and they get rid of me like this, just an hour before the end of my shift.”

Another worker said: “It’s disgusting. It was just a case of ‘see you later — now go get another job’.”

A worker in his 50s, who kept his job, had sympathy for the agency workers.

He said: “It’s not just losing good workers and friend, it’s the way they did it which I think is disgusting.”