ABC improvements demanded

BECTU is pressing for improvements to the redundancy package for those being made redundant from ABC cinemas.

ABC has confirmed that it is selling off nearly a third of its cinemas around the country to finance an expansion of its operation into multiplexes. This will cause an estimated 400 job losses.

Though the cinemas are up for sale, most have yet to be sold. In the meantime BECTU has been looking at early retirement where appropriate, job transfers, and notification to BECTU where possible of staff who will be available for employment elsewhere, for example, vacancies in other chains.

The union's redundancy proposals include doubling the redundancy pay to two weeks per year of service and removing the current 20 year upper limit of service used to calculate entitlements.