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6 March, 2012
Union members, affiliated to Unite the Union in the UK, rejected 5 March a redundancy proposal from Austrian packaging company Mayr-Melnhof that would have ended a 19-day lockout at a plant in Merseyside, near Liverpool. Workers rejected it 138-1 largely because management still insists on its own discretionary powers in disbursing redundancy packages to 49 workers.
Unite has escalated a campaign against the Vienna-based paper carton and packaging company primarily because Mayr-Melnhof has retracted and reduced buy-out terms in this set of talks, and has substantially broken from redundancy pay-outs and terms commonly established in past consultations.
In talks on 29 February and again on 3 March, the company proposed a social fund to bridge the difference paid in its 2008 and 2010 layoffs, with lesser packages offered now. But the social fund would be discretionary, based on subjective criteria unilaterally set by the company, which underscores Mayr-Melnhof’s bargaining posture throughout this set of 2012 talks.
Workers at the Bootle, Merseyside, plant began lawful industrial actions on 10 February over Mayr-Melnhof’s intransigence with six-hour “switch strikes.” Walkouts rotated from 06h to noon, and from noon to 18h. On 18 February, managers locked workers out and began manoeuvring to move equipment and product out of the factory.
Workers then entered the factory and staged a shop-floor sit-in to prevent removal. Despite several sets of talks since, Mayr-Melnhof has steadfastly resisted any workable compromise proposed by Unite, and the lockout has continued.
The union has brought the dispute to Mayr-Melnhof’s Packaging Division workers in Germany, and the ICEM has issued a call for Solidarity Action, which can be viewed and acted upon here. Trade unionists inside the company’s Karton Division, led by Austrian affiliate PRO-GE, have brought attention to the company’s hostile UK labour relations inside Mayr-Melnhof’s eight European paper mills, and PRO-GE has also protested loudly to CEO Wilhelm Hoermansedar.
Unite, meanwhile, is preparing an industrial ballot at Mayr-Melnhof’s other UK packaging plant, in Deeside, North Wales, on grounds that the company is worsening redundancy terms and conditions from previously agreed. The Bootle plant produces food packaging from tea bags to breakfast cereal to pet food packaging, with Kellogg’s the plant’s biggest customer.