WORRIED employees at York's Barbican Centre have been warned their jobs will be "at risk" when it is privatised later this year.

Workers are understood to be unhappy after receiving a letter, with one employee claiming that staff found it "hard to take" after the huge efforts they had made in recent years to raise the centre's profile.

A union leader has also accused City of York Council of keeping staff bewildered and in the dark.

Brian Ward, UNISON regional officer, also said he understood the council had guaranteed to redeploy people elsewhere when the centre shuts at the end of May, but was now going back on this commitment.

He spoke of fears that those employees taken on by the proposed new centre owners, Absolute Leisure (AL), might not enjoy the same terms, conditions and pensions as they received from the council.

He said staff also had concerns about the level of service which would be provided to the public after the change of ownership.

But the council has responded by saying meetings will be held with both staff and unions over the next fortnight to discuss with them what is being planned. The staff meeting takes place tomorrow.

Charlie Croft, assistant director for lifelong learning and leisure, said the council had never given guarantees that all fitness and sports employees would be redeployed and avoid redundancy.

But he insisted that every possible effort would be made to find alternative work.

He also said that, while negotiations were continuing over the legal rights of entertainment staff moving across to AL, the company had indicated that it wanted to employ them under the same terms and conditions as they currently enjoyed.

He said some entertainment staff would be kept on during the refurbishment work, which was due to last from June to November, but some staff, such as those in catering, would remain the responsibility of the council, which would attempt to find work for them elsewhere.

Updated: 10:32 Tuesday, February 03, 2004