By Jill Park

Former Prisme Packaging employees staging a sit-in at the company's Dundee factory have been issued a reprieve by the landlord after the company revealed it is in talks with a private backer.

 

Protesters were granted an extension to their deadline, by Glasgow letting agency Granite Edge, after claiming that they were close to reaching a deal to generate finance to reinvent the business as a co-operative.

 

On Friday (17 April) Granite Edge said former Prisme employees could remain in the premises beyond the 5pm Monday deadline after MP Stewart Hosie wrote a letter on their behalf.

 

This deadline has now been extended indefinitely.

 

Seven of the company's 12 employees have been refusing to leave the facility since they were laid off, and told they would not receive redundancy pay, six weeks ago.

 

The loss of Prisme Packaging's biggest customer Edrington Distillers in Glasgow was a major contributing factor in the closure of the site at the beginning of March.

 

Last week, the group was refused capital to fund the move to turn the company into a co-operative.

 

It is rumoured that former Prisme employees are close to reaching a deal with an unnamed private backer to start trading under the name Discovery Packaging.

 

Packaging News was unable to contact Prisme's former employees as this story went to press.

From: packagingnews.co.uk