More lay offs at Matthews
- From: "Pat Gardiner" <patgardiner@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 28 Mar 2007 11:55:29 +0100
Pat's Note: I was expecting this. You notice sales in the Eastern region
were hit harder than elsewhere. The reason is simple. Those in the east were
watching local TV news. They saw the quite extraordinary performance put on
by Britain's corrupt government vets every day from helicopters overhead and
listened to their explanations.
They know that they were being lied to by civil servants running out of
government control. Recall they have been through all this with Britain's
SVS several times before
So far the government has failed completely to get a grip of the situation
and reassure the public that they have now put capable people in charge.
It seems that they are content to leave it to the EU investigators to make
them discipline public servants.
http://new.edp24.co.uk/content/news/story.aspx?brand=EDPOnline&category=News&tBrand=EDPOnline&tCategory=news&itemid=NOED28%20Mar%202007%2009%3A56%3A16%3A457
Turkey workers count cost of bird flu
The Bernard Matthews' factory at Great Witchingham, where production is
still running below capacity, two months after the bird flu outbreak.
SARAH BREALEY
28 March 2007 09:54
Things still look bleak for Bernard Matthews, nearly two months after bird
flu hit one of the company's farms.
Europe's biggest turkey producer said last night that sales "have not yet
started to significantly increase" as it laid off a further 49 staff.
And the farm at Holton, near Halesworth, is still lying empty after 160,000
turkeys were slaughtered to stop the spread of the virulent H5N1 virus.
Though the factory next door is up and running, Holton and its sister
factory at Great Witchingham are running at far less than capacity because
consumers are still turning away from its products.
A total of 277 staff have now been laid off from the Witchingham and Holton
factories, though seven were taken back earlier this month. Fourteen staff
have just been laid off from Holton, and a further 35 will be laid off from
Witchingham with effect from tomorrow.
The news comes at a time when there were hopes that workers would have been
taken back on as sales increased. Instead, they seem to have barely
recovered from their slump of 40pc - despite a £7m campaign to restore
confidence.
The campaign, launched earlier this month with full-page newspaper adverts
signed by 76-year-old Bernard Matthews himself, is still in its early
stages. The next phase will include new products and healthier versions of
existing favourites.
A company spokesman said yesterday: "Bernard Matthews' overall product sales
have levelled off but have not yet started to significantly increase. The
company remains focussed on boosting consumer confidence, which would
positively impact upon product sales and limit the number of job losses."
Jonathan Banks, of retail analysts Neilsen, said that turkey sales in
general, worth £5m a week, were taking much longer than expected to recover.
He said: "Immediately after the outbreak, turkey sales dropped by about 45pc
versus the previous year. They are now starting to come back a bit. The
latest week we have sales for, which is the week ending March 17, sales were
down 24pc so that is an improvement, though it is still a few million pounds
down."
Bernard Matthews' sales had taken an even bigger blow, Mr Banks said,
adding: "Bernard Matthews were saying that sales were down by 40pc, and that
still seems to be the picture we are getting."
And he said that consumers in this region were shunning turkey to an even
greater extent - sales dropped by half in the eastern region after the
outbreak, and are still down 26pc.
Mr Banks said: "In one way it is understandable, because the story has had
greater magnitude for people in the region.
"But in another you would expect them to understand that they cannot catch
bird flu from eating turkey.
"If there are no further scare stories, you would expect sales to be back up
to their pre scare levels in about a month."
Most of those former employees without work are struggling to make ends meet
and a few have decided to go back to Portugal.
The first to be laid off - 130 workers from Witchingham who were told they
were being laid off for four weeks - have now been out of work for over a
month.
Staff are entitled to make a claim for redundancy four weeks after being
laid off, but few have done so as most have been with the company for less
than two years and will receive no redundancy payments. If they are still
laid off after three months, then Bernard Matthews must make them redundant.
Elisa Pinto, equalities officer from the Keystone Development Trust, said:
"They are finding it quite difficult at the moment. A few of them have been
coming here to see if there are any courses they can do to help them get
other jobs."
Miles Hubbard, regional industrial organiser for the Transport and General
Workers' Union, said: "We are encouraging then to stay on lay off and in the
meantime look for other employment and to go on benefits, which most already
have. If the company takes them back, then they haven't lost anything,
whereas if they take redundancy then they have lost any chance of getting
their jobs back."
The Bernard Matthews' spokesman said that those who applied for redundancy
would have it processed quickly. He added: "Bernard Matthews, in
consultation with the union, will action all eligible redundancy requests
received by staff who have been laid off for over four weeks without delay."
Meanwhile the company's 4,000 staff in the region are hoping the £7m
advertising campaign will be money well spent.
Regards
Pat Gardiner
www.go-self-sufficient.com
.
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