Bakery faces job cuts

An announcement is to be made at noon today about the future of the award-winning Mother's Pride bakery in Derry. Union officials yesterday held talks with the 90-strong workforce amid rumours of significant job losses at the only industrial bakery in the north-west. The plant, which is owned by British Bakeries, has been operating from its Northland Road base in Derry for the last 32 years.

Mr John Halliday, regional officer of the Bakers', Food and Allied Workers' Union said the workforce feared the worst.

"The workers are apprehensive. We had a meeting today with the Mayor, but until the official announcement is made, there's not really a lot to say. It is a severe situation for the staff to be in. We feel the management could have handled the situation better and all I can say is that we're still in there fighting", said Mr Halliday. Meanwhile, the Mayor of Derry, Councillor Pat Ramsey, said the plant had won the Bakery of the Year title for the last five years. "Given the track record of the workers in terms of production and quality, the question has to be asked why there is this doubt over the plant's future. We have to await the outcome of the announcement. It may not be a total closure, it may be a major reduction in staff, and that announcement will dictate what the council's response will be," he said.

Derry businesswoman Ms Mary Breslin has received an International Award for Entrepreneurship at the Global Summit for Women Entrepreneurs in Washington.

Ms Breslin, managing partner of Total Engineering, is the only Irishwoman out of 12 worldwide to receive one of the awards, presented yesterday at the ambassadors' luncheon.

The awards ceremony, which was to be televised and incorporated into the presidential "millennium film", gives Total Engineering, the only participating Irish company, a very strong platform for further trade links within the US.

Total Engineering, currently ranked 34 out of the top 100 companies sponsored by the Local Enterprise Development Unit

A Co Down company specialising in the manufacture of agricultural packaging is investing £2 million in an expansion programme which it hopes will increase its export sales, and result in the creation of 17 jobs. UPU Industries, which currently employs 34 people at its plant in Dromore, makes a woven polythene product called net wrap, which is used for such things as circular hay bales. Group chief executive Mr Philip Orr said that the company was aiming to increase its output by 50 per cent, and to develop a number of key export markets. The project is being supported by an IDB grant of around £500,000.

Leading Northern Ireland economists have said that local companies may not be able to implement the recommendations in the government's document on economic development, Strategy 2010. In a report entitled Nothing New Under the Sun: Fifty Years of Economic Strategy Documents in Northern Ireland, Queen's University economist Prof Esmond Birnie, a UUP member of the Northern Ireland Assembly, and his colleague Mr David Hitchens say this is the eleventh economic policy review in 45 years, all of which failed to achieve their objectives. "The very fact that there have been so many economic policy reviews, on average one every five years, is hardly testimony to their potency," Prof Birnie said. "It is hard to resist the conclusion that many of the documents had much less impact on changing policy, let alone changing the economy, than had been hoped."

He says that Strategy 2010 would be strengthened by research, and by an action plan which would consider the latest management thinking in Northern Ireland, and compare it to international standards.