Manderley Food Group proposals will mean Tayto’s sixtieth anniversary will be marked with large-scale redundancies at Tandragee

April 7th: Sean McKeever, Unite officer for production and packaging workers at Tayto in Tandragee has confirmed he had been informed of a likely eighty job losses at the site by management acting on behalf of Manderley Food Group:

“Manderley Food Group appears intent on maximising their profits at Tayto regardless of the cost to the workforce. They have now informed Unite that they will be seeking eighty redundancies in the next few months.

“This is only the latest in a series of blows to workers. It comes only days after they attempted to justify not paying the new ‘National’ Living Wage by counting a monthly bonus payment made entirely separate to the basic wage.

“This is disgraceful behaviour from a group who announced pre-tax profits for 2015 of more than seven million pounds. The four directors of this company, including the wealthy Hutchinson family members, were paid more than £1.7 million last year in director fees alone and their wealth was estimated in the 2016 Rich List at £67 million.

“This group appear intent on marking the sixtieth anniversary of Tayto in Tandragee with large-scale job losses and a squeeze on workers’ pay.

“This latest announcement leaves Unite with no option but to ballot our members for strike action. It is likely that any strike action will cause significant disruption to the production of Tayto crisps but also own-brand products for the multiples”, Mr McKeever concluded.