BMW is to shed 850 jobs at the world's only Mini factory in Cowley, with agency workers bearing the brunt of the cuts.
Workers were reportedly given just one hour's notice of the cuts, the announcement of which saw managers pelted with fruit.
Employees at Cowley, near Oxford, were told they were not entitled to redundancy pay with the announcement that the plant was switching to a five-day week.
Union bosses said the way in which workers were being treated was a "scandal", but employees have hit out at the unions themselves for not protecting their rights.
Today's job cuts - which will come into effect at the beginning of March - follow similar moves at other car manufacturers' UK plants.
Honda, Vauxhall, Jaguar Land Rover, Toyota, Nissan and Bentley are all scaling back amid a slump in car sales during the global downturn.
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