The company has also given Reed Packaging employees notice of possible redundancies in case it is forced to close the plant if a buyer cannot be found. Reed Packaging is understood to employ between 70 to 100 staff.

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 main Washington site (PrintWeek, 27 November).

A local source said: "Reed has been trying to save jobs and you'd think in these circumstances everyone would pull together, but no."

In a statement Reed Print Group managing director Giles Sergant said that Reed Packaging had been supported by other Reed companies for the last 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 groups divisions for industrial action. The first was held for 28 Reed Print & Design employees, and the second for 18 workers from Reed Packaging.

GPMU national office 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.

He added that the company did not accept that it had a dispute at Reed Packaging, but that it did at Reed Print & Design.

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

Local sources said that Reed Packaging, which was formerly known as Kelly Packaging and bought by the Reed Print Group in 1999, had recently lost contracts and was loss-making.

Reed Print Group, which employs 350, had sales of just over 24m in the year to May 2002.

by John Davies