A NORTH-EAST engineering company will begin reducing hours for its workers from next week.

From Monday, workers at Cleveland Bridge, based in Darlington, will begin working one week on, one week off, on a short-time working system.

This week, the company said 95 staff would be made redundant and that the remaining 100 or so shop-floor workers would work on a short-time basis.

The announcement followed news that the company had entered a legal battle with Multiplex, the main contractor on the Wembley stadium project, and that it was stopping all work on the project.

Yesterday, union and Cleveland Bridge officials met to try to agree the terms of the short-time system.

A workforce meeting will take place at 7.15am on Monday to discuss the proposals.

Although he declined to talk about the terms of the deal until he had spoken to te workers, Jimmy Skivington, of the GMB union, said workers would get paid approximately 40 per cent of their wage on the weeks they are not working.

He said: "I think we have had some movement. That was not what it was before and we did manage to achieve an increase.

"Obviously, the company is wanting to save as much money as it can, but we have to still try and maintain a decent living for our members."

A Cleveland Bridge spokeswoman said the company was sorry for the move and appreciated the union's help.

She said: "We are really seeking new work and are very busy finding projects which we can bring forward, and we are very keen to make sure that we can get back to a full working schedule."