Union tries to find alternative jobs for discharged workers

The General Workers' Union said yesterday it was doing its best to find alternative jobs for the Toly Products employees who were handed their dismissal notice yesterday.

The union said the company has laid off around 40 employees due to lack of orders.

The union's chemicals and general workers section secretary, Gejtu Mercieca, said the GWU had a number of meetings with the company management over the situation.

Only last May, Toly Products, which makes luxury packaging for some of the world's leading cosmetics, fragrances and skin care industries, announced that it had invested Lm500,000 in a new lacquering facility adjacent to its manufacturing plant at Bulebel industrial estate.

The company employs 540 workers and makes 250,000 finished components every day.

Mr Mercieca said the company had started off the year well, with a number of orders but there was a drop in activity due to a lack of sales by the international companies it supplied.

Mr Mercieca said jobs in the manufacturing industry had been on a consistent decline in the past two years.