Deal averts biscuit firm closure

Aug 17 2007 by Liam Murphy, Liverpool Daily Post

ALMOST a thousand biscuit factory workers were last night pondering a deal to save around half of their jobs.

The agreement was being hail-ed as the best deal possible by unions, who were outlining the proposal to workers at the Burtons Foods factory in Wirral yesterday.

It follows months of intense negotiations following the shock announcement in May when workers at the Pasture Road site were told 821 jobs would be lost.

Few believed the 128 workers remaining at the factory, which makes Wagon Wheels and Jammie Dodgers, would last much longer.

The deal being put to staff means overall 437 jobs will be kept at the plant with work guaranteed for the next five years, although around 500 jobs, some of which are seasonal, will still go.

Leader of Wirral Council Steve Foulkes said he was “a lot happier than a few months ago” but said the job losses which remain would still be “a blow to the local economy as well as personal tragedy for those individuals affected”.

However, he praised the union, council officers and company management who worked to find yesterday’s solution.

The company had blamed over- capacity in its main markets for the job losses and planned to move some production to its others sites, which include Edinburgh, Knowsley, Blackpool, Llantarnam and a head office in St Albans.

Tony Woodley, joint general secretary of Unite, said a mixture of continuing investment and refurbishment will now see a centre of excellence being developed in Moreton.

The union said the deal will involve altering the plant layout and a £7.3m package of savings.

In exchange, Burton’s Foods have given guarantees for five years of work through to May, 2012.

Mr Woodley said: “Full closure of the Moreton site has been averted and, importantly, manu-facturing is to stay. It is, in my view, the best deal in the circumstances.”

Local union representative Franny Joyce said: “The few jobs they were planning to keep there would have been unsustainable. Now we have a commitment for five years and it’s up to us to ensure that in 2012 we are building on what we have got.”

In 2001 the company was given £3m of regional selective assis-tance from the Government and £1m of rate rebates from the local authority to help finance an ex-pansion of production at the site and safeguard employment in the area. The announcement of the job losses came just weeks after the deadline passed which would have allowed this cash to be claimed back and the company was fiercely criticised by Wallasey MP Angela Eagle.

Since then Ms Eagle has been involved in meetings between unions and the company. Last night she said: “It looks like we have saved biscuit manufactur-ing on the site. I’m obviously extremely pleased. We were faced with the possibility of closure, but this plan, although involving some job losses, will save biscuit manufacturing at the Moreton site. The Burtons board have also agreed to capital investment on the site and I think this demon-strates renewed commitment.

Paul Kitchener, chief executive of Burton’s Foods, said: “Follow-ing a constructive consul-tation process we have developed an alternative proposal for Moreton that will see the creation of a centre of manufac-turing excellence for our seasonal ranges. We would like to thank our Moreton staff and their representatives for their continued commitment and valuable input.”

liammurphy