BemroseBooth workers anger at management
WORKERS who got their marching orders from BemroseBooth, the struggling print firm that was put into administration on Monday, have blasted management.
The five were dismissed from their jobs - two of them after 18 years with the company - as 160 colleagues were made redundant across two other sites in Derby and Hull. The Thornaby works continues to employ around 30 permanent staff alongside at least as many agency workers.
This morning administrators David Rubin and Henry Lan of insolvency practitioners David Rubin & Partners LLP in London, said they were unaware of the Thornaby sackings and were continuing to market that side of the business as a going concern.
Although the plant is not unionised, officers representing workers at other BemroseBooth sites warned last week that workers were likely to lose out if management were successful in buying the company out of administration.
The Unite union said at the time that it was “shocked and appalled” at the way in which management had dealt with the issue.
Carol Ellison from Ormesby, who had worked part-time for BemroseBooth in Thornaby for six-and-a- half years said she had been left with nothing. She said the company had refused to pay the wages for five staff - one of whom claims to be owed up to £13,000.
“We hadn’t been aware of what was happening,” she said. “Somebody found out on a website on Monday morning.”
A day later, the first staff were dismissed on minimum terms.
“We were told we wouldn’t be paid for the work we had done. But how can they still be employing agency staff?” said Ms Ellison.
One of the longest established print companies in the UK, until two years ago BemroseBooth employed around 650 staff. It slashed this by almost half as clients reduced promotional budgets, adding to overcapacity in the industry.
Administrators said its problems were compounded by declining profitability in fields in which BembroseBooth had come to specialise, including telecom scratch cards, where markets and production had tended to moved to Third World countries.
No one was available at the company to comment.
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