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Butler and Tanner staff go to High Court

08.05.08 Alison Flood

Former Butler and Tanner employees have lodged a petition at the Birmingham District Registry of the High Court seeking to claim unpaid wages. The claim was lodged by trade union Unite.

Ann Field, Unite national officer, said: "This is an unusual step for us to take, but it is the only avenue open to us to stop [Butler and Tanner parent company MPI chairman Mike] Dolan leaving our members in limbo, without any of their unpaid wages, notice pay or redundancy pay. Unite believes Butler and Tanner have abused the goodwill of the workforce and left them high and dry."

MPI closed the Somerset printing firm in late April over a dispute about proposed industrial action, making 287 workers immediately redundant. Dolan said he had not yet been made aware of the claim by the High Court, but that he would "be happy to respond" once he had seen it.

He said that plans to liquidate Butler and Tanner were still going ahead, with "absolutely zero" likelihood of the printer being sold as a going concern. "There's only been one party who has expressed any interest, but they haven't demonstrated any financial ability to sustain it. No serious approach has been made."

He did say that there had been "very many serious approaches" for Butler and Tanner's printing presses and binding equipment. "This is what we want to do in order to pay our creditors," he added.

Printing Alison Flood Butler and Tanner MPI Media

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Comments on this article

By Clive Keeble

Me thinks, how very accomodating of Mike Dolan to sell the B&T printing presses and binding equipment "in order to pay our creditors" : is this action being undertaken under the guidance and instructions of an insolvency practitioner to Butler and Tanner Printers Ltd., for no such offical named individual (or individuals) has appeared in this or any other news report.

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By stumpedgecko

turns out MPI jumped in first. According to PrintWeek, administrators have already been appointed at Butler and Tanner. http://www.printweek.com/news/808210/

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By Clive Keeble

I dearly hope that ,both for the sake of the booktrade, as well as all the 287 previous workers at Butler and Tanner Printers Ltd., that the administrators will be able to arrange a sale of the business (with all its machinery) as a going concern. If there was ever a time for a white knight to appear, surely this is it : the late Joe Tanner will always be at that person's elbow to offer positive advice !

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By charles dirrondy

dolans name is not fit to be used in the same breath,sentence or anything else for that matter as joe tanner not in this or any other lifetime. I had the privelege to work for B+T for nearly 20 years and it was a super company to work for until dippy dolan ruined it .absolutely shameful and an absolute disgrace. what goes round comes around. all my opinion of course

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By Mark Hutton

Butler & Tanner Printers LTD had to be pushed into administration by Unite to allow the former employees the chance to get access to their records and paperwork. It also gives anyone wishing to make an approach to the business the chance to deal with a proper and trustworthy authority. As a former printer all my records of employment were trapped within the offices at Caxton Rd with no clear sign of when they would be released and obviously no help or co-operation from Mike Dolan/MPI who seemed to be pursuing a petty revenge against the redundant workforce.

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By Colin Walsh

In publishing houses, the production department was most frequently at the bottom of the pile. And at the bottom of THEIR pile came the suppliers. Pretty unlikely that the commissioning editors, even the authors, knew the name of the printer. Printers are inky. And technical. And dispensable. Always, always, the lowest unit cost - and my company, too, followed that course. So...go to China. We all do. Go to anywhere where the margin can be screwed. The cost is obvious. Whatever the current dispute at B&T, anyone in the book trade has a pretty good idea of what really hit B&T, the loss of a very major account some years back. Does anyone care? Does it matter? Oh yes, it matters. It matters when you need professional teams to work with you, not as some remote supplier to be beaten down in price. It matters when you need delivery dates NOW, when you need quality that you've had before, because you have a good relationship with a ssupplier who is part of your team. And it matters when it's a printing house of great skills and flexibility, when it is the main employer at its local base, and when the demise of such a major player in the book printing industry is a sign that the publishers, too, will be on the same road. More than half the book printing output in the UK is now for non-publishing companies. BPC works for corporates, institutions and blue chips for whom the lowest price does not necessarily dictate everything else. Publishing houses, though, work to the dictates of a market that doesn't necessarily want their product. So that lowest margin, that pushing the supplier down to the lowest price, is always paramount. But it does mean the end of houses like B&T. Colin Walsh, MD, Book production Consultants

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