Employees at the plant staged walkouts earlier this month over redundancy selection criteria and payment changes made by the company.

Things turned ugly last weekend (18 February) when management staged a lockout, meaning employees were informed not to show up for work and would not be paid, leading to employees entering the building to stage a protest.

An emergency meeting was called for Monday (20 February), which Unite claims did not offer any progress, while a second meeting is taking place today (22 February).

Employees are still locked out of the facility; however, Unite national officer Ian Tonks told PrintWeek that it is no longer technically a lockout because employees are being paid.

Tonks said: "I have explained to the company that the point of a consultation is to mitigate the effect of redundancy, to reduce redundancies where possible.

"At Bootle, through agreeing to the four or five changes to working practices that the management wanted – which some believe are outdated – we have cut redundancies from 49 to 37. That's redundancies down 25% and costs down 25%.

"But that seems to have no value when you sit down and talk about suitable criteria for redundancies, MMP are the ones walking away from an agreed practice. We are still struggling and it seems we are a long way off."

Employees are unhappy with the company because the selection criteria used for redundancies in 2005, 2008 and 2010 have been changed.

Tonks added: "In my opinion, the terms they want to use will allow them to retain the bright young things rather than the experienced guys who have served the company well for 25 years."