Robert Maxwell interview | Job Losses | printing presses| News paper owner |TN-82-092-020 — Transcript

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1. 0:08Robert Maxwell clinched his hold on
2. 0:10watford's printing industry two weeks
3. 0:12ago when he bought autums off Reed
4. 0:13International adding it to the town's
5. 0:16Sun printers which he already owned
6. 0:18since then there's been speculation that
7. 0:19one of the plants is certain to close
8. 0:22tonight Robert Maxwell wouldn't say
9. 0:23which one but he made it clear that
10. 0:25massive redundancies are certain I have
11. 0:29estimate ated and this is only uh this
12. 0:31can only be uh an estimate at the
13. 0:34present time something like 1,200 JS
14. 0:37will go at both Autumns and Sun that's a
15. 0:42very bitter blow for the town do you
16. 0:44feel there's no way around those
17. 0:45redundancies it is indeed a bit of blow
18. 0:47but the alternative is to have both
19. 0:50plants shuts which would have been the
20. 0:53case had the deal between Mr Leslie
21. 0:56Carpenter and myself not been concluded
22. 0:59and very
23. 1:01Speedy negotiations only a few weeks ago
24. 1:04the way it looks to me a minimum of 1
25. 1:061200 if not 1500 people will be losing
26. 1:09their jobs in this town which will be a
27. 1:11disaster for the town not just for those
28. 1:13who are employed in the printing
29. 1:14industry and the ancillary trades that
30. 1:16Supply the two big houses of sun and
31. 1:18odums but uh even the local shopkeepers
32. 1:21I mean if it was to odums that was to go
33. 1:23down the pan and because of his plan
34. 1:25then certainly this side of Watford
35. 1:26would become like a ghost town I should
36. 1:28think 2,700 people work for Sun and aums
37. 1:32in Watford and all now face a Christmas
38. 1:34wondering how secure their jobs are in
39. 1:37addition to job losses union leaders
40. 1:39fear the cuts will make it impossible to
41. 1:40bring back lost print business to the
42. 1:42town which will no longer have the
43. 1:44capacity to deal with it there's no
44. 1:47danger at all I have recently acquired a
45. 1:50major catalog the Argos catalog which we
46. 1:54lost to the Italians on Fair terms back
47. 1:57to this country it's worth 7 million
48. 2:00pounds over two years we have ample
49. 2:02capacity in this industry and in this
50. 2:04country to cope tonight print workers in
51. 2:08Watford still don't know where the jobs
52. 2:10acts will fall Robert Maxwell has
53. 2:12promised an announcement within the next
54. 2:13few days but meanwhile he goes into
55. 2:16negotiations with the elements of
56. 2:17surprise and uncertainty on his side
57. 2:20this is Steve Clark for TS news in
58. 2:27Watford