YESTERDAY the jobs bombshell was dropped at Nestl in York - and today the shockwaves continue to spread.

Workers fearing redundancy have been told they could lose more than a third of their redundancy package under controversial new financial arrangements.

Nestl bosses want to change radically the way redundancy is paid in a move which is likely to hit long-term employees the hardest. One worker with more than 30 years service at the Haxby Road factory told the Evening Press he feared his potential pay-out of £75,000 could be reduced to £46,000.

Such a cut would be a massive blow to any worker facing up to a future without a job.

Nestl management wish to bring in the revised formula in the face of new age discrimination legislation. That hardly seems fair. If workers who have given many years service are in line for a generous pay-out, the company should honour the existing arrangements - and not introduce a less generous alternative.

When Nestl took over Rowntree, it acquired a firm with a deep history of social welfare and benevolence, including setting up an early pension scheme for workers in 1906. Today's multinational, big-business world is a long way from such paternalistic beginnings, but Nestl should still ensure that it does right by its longest-serving employees.

The wider question facing workers, and the rest of the city, concerns whether or not confectionery has a long-term future in York. Now is the time for Nestl to gave cast-iron assurances of its commitment to the city.

Updated: 10:47 Friday, March 03, 2006