No Pay Off For Export Team

DAILY MIRROR
By Brian Morton-Smith

The £145,000,000 Leyland-Standard motor group has fired twenty six export staff including 47-year-old James Dick, whose brother Alick resigned last August as Standards managing director.

The sacked staff say they have been told that because of "financial difficulties " the company cannot consider paying general compensation for the loss of their jobs.

Standard’s — full name: Standard Triumph International, Ltd.—were taken over by Leyland’s last April.

Leyland chairman Sir Henry Spurrier announced that there would be drastic cuts in Standard staff. In August, 45-year-old Alick Dick quit because he disagreed with 63-year-old Sir Henry about the best way to get Standard out of the red. Six of his fellow-directors were taken off the board. During the same month, nearly 200 executives and clerks were sacked.

Now the group has decided to kill off Standard Triumph Export Sales Ltd, the subsidiary which handles export sales to customers who collect their cars in Britain. The work, involving £500,000 worth of cars each year , will be done by another Standard depot .
James Dick, manager of the subsidiary, in Headfortplace, Westminster, has been given two weeks notice. So have seven office staff and eighteen fitters and mechanics.

One of Mr. Dick's staff said: "We feel the firm should at least pay compensation. Some of the sacked men have been with the company thirty years."

Sir Henry Spurrier, whose Leyland company made £10,000,000 profit last year, said at his country home at Lymington, Hants:
"This is a routine matter, and has no significance outside the company."