City Link staff hold protest outside Scottish depot
Workers facing redundancy at the collapsed parcel delivery firm City Link have staged a demonstration outside a depot in North Lanarkshire.
Staff learned the firm, which employs 165 people in Scotland, had gone into administration on Christmas day.
Workers gathered in Motherwell on Monday morning to protest against the prospect of redundancy.
Coventry-based City Link employs 2,727 people in the UK. The RMT union expects more than 2,000 to be made redundant.
The job losses are expected on New Year's Eve, with the remaining posts being retained to wind down the company.
Staff have been told they will be paid until 31 December.
More than 100 contractors work for the company in Scotland. They will be treated as creditors by administrators.
Those taking part in the protest in Motherwell were demanding political efforts to save the operation as a going concern - or for as many jobs as possible to be saved.
Gordon Martin, regional organiser in Scotland for the RMT union, said some staff were joined at the demonstration by their partners and children.
Speaking at the scene, he said: "It's a demonstration organised by the workers, for the workers, about their right to work.
"Basically this is a right-to-work argument. These guys deserve and demand the right to work."
He claimed a recent meeting with the administrators failed to give staff answers to their questions.
"They've walked out of the meeting more disillusioned than when they walked into it, which is saying something considering the situation," he said.
Mr Martin said the protesters were aiming to put political pressure on UK and Scottish politicians to intervene to save jobs.
He urged MSPs and Scottish ministers to "intervene with any means possible and through any actions to try and keep this as a going concern - and if that's not possible to save as many jobs as possible".
Administrators Ernst & Young have said "substantial redundancies" are expected in the coming days and that it was "cautious" about the prospects of finding a buyer for the business.
City Link, which was founded in 1969, was acquired by restructuring specialist Better Capital in April 2013.
It invested £40m, but the administrators said City Link had incurred substantial losses over several years and the money could not help it turn the firm around.
The company has Scottish bases in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Glenrothes and Motherwell.