The company has given Reed Packaging employees notice of possible redundancies in case a buyer cannot be found. Reed Packaging has 118 employees.

The announcement follows industrial action at Reed Packaging and Reed Print & Design in a dispute over a change in terms and conditions, including shift patterns, following last years fire which destroyed its Washington site (PrintWeek, 27 November).

In a statement Reed Print Group managing director Giles Sergant said that Reed Packaging had been supported by other Reed firms for the past two years.

However, the complete loss by fire of our main operations in Washington (Reed Print & Design), has been followed this year by the GPMUs demand for more pay, an unofficial overtime ban and industrial action this week because of an enforced move from weekly to monthly pay right across the group last December, said Sergant.

Earlier this month PrintWeek revealed that there had been two ballots at two of the 350-employee groups divisions for industrial action. The first was held for 28 Reed Print & Design employees, and the second for 18 workers from Reed Packaging.

However, the company does not accept that the dispute is legal and has issued the union with a termination notice, which could mean that the GPMU is not recognised at the company from 25 May.

GPMU national officer Mike Griffiths said that Reed Print Group had served an injunction to prevent industrial action at Reed Packaging and that the union had suspended its action for now.

We believe our case is winnable. We will see when we meet at the High Court in Leeds, said Griffiths.

Story by John Davies