A total of 54 jobs are under consultation, although the company has also created an additional 46 jobs and hopes to fill these roles through the redundant employees.

A spokesman for Trinity Mirror said: "The restructure is wholly internal and all staff at risk of redundancy have been offered the opportunity to apply for resulting roles within Trinity Mirror Printing."

It is understood that the move has been made in reaction to the Agency Workers Directive, which gives temporary workers more rights in the workplace.

According to Unite, employees that were previously working as contracted employees from contractor Aktrion have been offered a reduced rate of pay, but will move to Trinity Mirror as permanent staff. Trinity said that the site was "already one of the best paid in the business". 

Unite national officer Steve Sibbald said: "At this stage there is no definite conclusion, the company has made suggestions regarding restructuring and we have made counter proposals."

Although Sibbald said the union was unhappy with the reduced rate, he added that it would rather staff moved to Trinity Mirror than remained with a contractor, which has happened at some other sites.

He said: "What tends to happen is that the printer contracts out the entire department and the contractor then takes on all the employees in that department and we don't want to see that. People want to work for Trinity Mirror."

Unite is also planning to ballot staff over a 2% offer of a pay rise at the plant. The ballot had been delayed due to the consultation over the restructure, however Sibbald told PrintWeek it should take place "in the next few weeks".

The Trinity spokesman added: "Unite have verbally indicated that they will ballot their members in relation to pay negotiations and an internal restructure but we have not yet received any formal notification, so we cannot comment on the specific issues until we see that."