Vicenza, Italy 08 October  2013 -- Burgo will reorganise the shift work system and abandon continuous production at the Sora coated fine paper mill due to weak market demand.

Italy's paper manufacturer Burgo Group is planning to temporarily lay off 150 workers at the Sora coated woodfree paper (CWF) mill near Rome. A corresponding announcement has been made by the company on 2 October, Italy's Slc Cgil and Uilcom Uil trade unions jointly reported. Burgo is preparing to interrupt the continuous production at the site and is therefore reducing the number of working shifts, it is said.

The restructuring measure makes provisions for short-time working for 150 people from the beginning of November onwards. The move is temporary, but Burgo has not disclosed any details when the mill would return to normal production again, said a spokesman for the Slc Cgil union, complaining about the lack of transparency in the company's actions. Burgo did not comment on its plans.

Burgo manufactures coated woodfree paper on two machines in Sora with a combined production capacity of 280,000 tpy. Production at the Sora fine paper mill is currently standing still: the company has halted the machines for one week until 14 October in a market related downtime, according to union sources. One-week downtime was taken in the first week of September as well.