Company will hold talks on redundancy

Press, 18 May 1984, Page 5

Company will hold talks on redundancy

Redundancy talks for 10 workers at Midland Panelworks, Ltd, will be held early next week.

The staff were technically made redundant last Friday when the workshop closed. It was taken over by McLaren Motors and all staff members were employed by the new owners. The Engineers and Related Trades Union is upset that the workers have lost all service-related benefits. The loss of the benefits was the normal reason for compensation payments, said the Canterbury district secretary of the’ union, Mr R. J. Todd.

A redundancy agreement was negotiated between Midland Coachlines and the union in 1982. Individual workers received letters from Ceramco, of which Midland is a subsidiary

company, in April. The letters advised of the closing of the workshop and detailed the redundancy compensation each would receive. The compensation was not paid, said Mr Todd. Ceramco management told the union that no payments would be made because all workers had immediately found new employment. Mr Todd said in a press release that Ceramco had not honoured a freely negotiated agreement which had been effective for two years. The company announced yesterday that it was prepared to meet the union to talk about redundancy payments.

Mr Todd said that he hoped Ceramco had some purposeful reason for agreeing to the talks.