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Sacked print workers to demonstrate

Written by Adrie van der Luijt

Friday, 02 May 2008

Hundreds of sacked workers at Somerset printers Butler & Tanner are to mount a demonstration on Friday.

Frome-based colour book printers Butler & Tanner laid off 287 workers on Saturday 26 April only to replace them with agency staff to keep the site operational.

Agency and temporary workers

The workforce of Butler and Tanner Printers Ltd (B&T) was informed by post that the company had closed and is going into receivership, owing the workers thousands of pounds in unpaid wages and deducted pension contributions.

Employees gathered at the company following receipt of their notices to find the gates barred and bolted.

Workers had been told the company is closed, that they are redundant with immediate effect and that an application for voluntary liquidation will be made.

Ann Field, national officer at trade union Unite, said, “We have received reports that the company is still operational inside the plant and that agency and temporary workers have been recruited to cover the work of the sacked Butler & Tanner staff.”

Union members expressed outrage that Butler & Tanner chairman Mike Dolan had sacked them, but was still intent to carry on the business.

“These cynical moves will only worsen the case against the chairman and the company,” Field added.

Wilful economic vandalism

Dolan had blamed the threat of industrial action by the union, which represents 210 of the firm’s 287 employees, for the decision to withdraw financial support by the printers’ parent company, private equity investors Media & Print Investments Plc (MPI).

He said Unite’s “miscalculation” led to the loss of jobs, after shareholders had been unwilling to “pour good money down what they consider to be a drain”.

Dolan added, “The union has shown utter contempt for its own members and Butler & Tanner by unnecessarily publicising their strike threat in a crass attempt to exert pressure on the company.”

He called it “an act of wilful economic vandalism” which frightened off too many of the printing firm’s customers, suppliers and financiers.

Pension contribution

The 150-year old firm is the biggest employer in the town and has employed local people, including many families, for generations.

At a packed workforce meeting earlier this week over 250 workers gathered to hear reports from Unite.

They heard that in addition to a month's wages owed by the company, the pension contribution of £44,000 was also unpaid.

At the meeting Unite pledged to take every step to retrieve the money owed, and all their entitlements and compensation and condemned the company's destruction of their jobs and livelihoods.

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