The Nottingham web offset plant was due to shut tomorrow (15 March) following a messy struggle between the unions national hierarchy and the Chromoworks chapel, which ended in the workforce rejecting Polestars proposals to change working terms and conditions.

But during individual redundancy counselling Polestar discovered that many workers would be willing to accept the groups revised package.

They asked for Tony Dubbins to become involved, said Polestar group operations director Chris Pavlosky. We then wrote to employees and enough accepted. He said agreement had been reached due to the sensible attitude of the GPMU leadership.

But it is believed that the hardcore of chapel officials that had resisted Polestars and the GPMUs efforts to save the plant have not accepted the new proposals and will leave the firm tomorrow.

The agreement comes two weeks after Polestar chief executive Barry Hibbert admitted that the group was in injury time in its attempts to find a solution.

This week he told PrintWeek: We have a plan that works and a cost level that works, so we can move the business forward. This is good news.

The agreement ends a five-month saga after Polestar proposed to cut 32 jobs because serious trading problems had left Chromoworks in an increasingly poor financial position (PrintWeek, 5 October 2001).

During the course of the dispute several private and confidential documents were leaked to PrintWeek.