TRADE unions have been given two months to come up with a plan to save the jobs of 700 workers in Worcester and many more elsewhere.
Employees at the former Kays catalogue firm in St John's have been told they have won yet another reprieve while the unions involved come up with a plan for the future of the firm.
The company's current owner, Littlewoods Direct, has not said what will happen after this. It announced back in September it was looking to close the warehouse in Bransford Road, which meant 700 jobs would go.
A month later, it took the proposal off the table and said instead it would review all warehouse and returns operations at the firm, putting other sites in the country under threat too.
Now, after doing this, the company has placed the ball firmly in the court of the Transport and General Workers' Union (T&G) and USDAW.
Shop steward Sean Glennon, of the T&G, said he believed they could rise to the task. He said: "The company's
concern is that there is spare capacity in warehouses but we believe the way to solve this is through third party contract work.
"We feel that we can fill space with doing work for other people.
"USDAW and the Transport And General Workers' Union have joined forces for the first time to convince the company of this.
"At first it was just Worcester that was under threat, but now other warehouses elsewhere are too, and so there is a larger union presence than before.
"There is a meeting with the chief executive next week to see what is going on. Once we know how they are feeling we can formulate our own strategy as
to how the company should progress."
Workers were informed on Thursday of the latest developments and Mr Glennon said there was mixed feelings.
He added: "The unions are seeing this as a really positive step and at least we're singing the same tune, but while some workers are feeling a lot happier about the future, others just see its as delaying tactics and think that losses are inevitable.
"I am confident the unions will do all they can to stop that happening."
A decision is expected by April at the earliest.
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