> More than 700 workers at a food manufacturing facility that supplies Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Marks and Spencer will strike from late November until the new year in a row over pay.
>Workers on the production line at the factory in Spalding, Lincolnshire, make own-brand salads, dips, sauces and deli produce for the UK’s major supermarkets.
>They have rejected a 6.5% pay offer from the factory’s owner, the fresh food manufacturer Bakkavor, and the strikes will begin on 25 November and last until 2 January.
>The Unite union claims many of the workers earn “just over 1p over the national minimum wage” and that some “are forced to use food banks”.
>Workers were previously set to strike in early November but the industrial action was postponed to allow the amended pay offer from Bakkavor to be voted on. The new deal was “overwhelmingly rejected” and talks between Bakkavor and Unite have since collapsed, the union said.
> It comes days after hundreds of workers at a factory in Aintree, near Liverpool, that makes Jacob’s Cream Crackers, Twiglets and Jaffa Cakes launched strike action in a dispute over pay.
> Unite’s general secretary, Sharon Graham, said: “The situation these workers face is exactly what is wrong with Britain’s economy today: A company earning millions and millions in profits expecting already low paid workers to take a pay cut while prices soar.
>“Unite will not tolerate attacks on our members’ jobs, pay or conditions and our Bakkavor members have the union’s complete backing as they strike for a better deal.”
They just announced the other day they’re closing two sites in that area, Sutton bridge and Leicester
Supermarkets: “Guys, we have to put prices up because of the pandemic and supply chain issues. We have no choice and would lose loads of money and jobs if we don’t, so be scared that will happen and accept the prices increases”
Also Supermarkets: “Wow, we’ve made record profits since operating costs didn’t go up that much but we increased prices!”
Workers and Employees of Supermarkets: “Great! So, can we get a payrise to counteract these higher prices?”
Supermarkets: “Oh no, we’d be ruined if we paid you more money, honestly. You can trust us”
Newspapers: “Record levels of inflation totally unrelated to huge profits seen in the corporate world amid rising prices”
Meanwhile the supermarkets are refusing to buy eggs from UK farmers because it will lower their profit margins.
Greed, greed, greed.
Shop local.
Yes! That’s fantastic news, more strikes please (no I’m not being sarcastic, I genuinely think it’s time for a big general strike).
The headline here is so misleading it isn’t even funny
Screw these corporations and their insane profits taking away from
People once again
Solidarity with them and it will hopefully have a knock on effect on supermarkets so we at Unite can win another industrial dispute.
The union says these workers earn minimum wage. Minimum wage goes up by 10% in April, in line with inflation. This company is a clown if they think 6% seems reasonable lol
I empathise a lot with factory workers. They do so much hard work/graft meanwhile I’m in my cushy office job WFH. My missus worked in a biscuit factory for three days before I told her to quit as I could see she was hating it. We aren’t that desperate for money, my salary can be stretched if I make some cutbacks on myself but it would be worth it not seeing her *that* shattered. She said it was awful, the people were the highlight but she said even they warned her dont get stuck here. It’ll wear you down.
I live in this town and that factory is probably the biggest employer in the town. Solidarity with them! Five weeks is a proper strike.
Weirdly written headline
Morrisons and tesco don’t have a factory.
They are a shop, not a manufacturer. They don’t MAKE anything themselves.
This is a factory that counts tesco and morrisons as its customers/retailers, along with other stores.
Just like many other factories.
Bakavor. Does the factory only make products for that part of the country? Wondering how far away the stocking issues will reach.
seems to be getting harder to use the excuse that strikers are just privledged golden credit card unionists who earn more than everyone else in the entire world
Not to defend the supermarkets, but the issues here is with Bakkavor (probably the biggest company you’ve never heard of) and how they treat employees. If everyone at Bakkavor walked out in solidarity with their colleagues at Spalding, the UK food supply chain would collapse overnight for many staple goods.
This could fuck our Christmas up. But GOOD ON THEM. I’ll happily eat baked beans for Xmas dinner if it means people are forced to start paying decent wages to the people who do most for us, for a change.
Shelf stackers, nurses, train drivers, bin men – the value of these people to society is far greater than most of the people who earn far more.
I was concerned until I read they make salad things
Record inflation combined with record profits. The entire system is making last ditch efforts to profiteer as much as possible before the inevitable collapse.
Some of the common items we buy in our weekly shop have gone up over 30%.. i refuse to now buy these items and changed to other brands.
Supermarkets are gouging the hell out of the consumers!
being savy we have actually dragged our weekly shop down from about £60-70 down to £40-£50.
sure, no treat items anymore because the gov dont want anyone to have fun or treats these days, but hey.. thats life.
Strike away workers! strike away!
I worked in Morrisons til a few weeks ago.
This’ll most likely get burried since I’m so late, but Morrisons was recently bought out by a company that’s known for just asset stripping
It’s been a downward spiral at the store I worked at, with 2 staff, 1 on checkout and 1 on self scans for four hours… people screaming at us for what’s literally outside of our control. Current Morrisons disgusts me. They deserve all the bad shit that hits them.
Fuck yes! So happy about retail strikes! Literally paid the bare minimum and never strike. Also, food retail workers were essential workers, and completely shafted in the pandemic.
One up side to Brexit is that it is now possible to get agency workers in.
Worked at the Bakkavor sites indirectly a few times. Spalding, Leicester and Sutton Bridge (which I was at just this week oddly). It’s your typical factory that thrives on cheap foreign labour. The basic jobs are almost all foreigners too. Factory conditions aren’t actually that bad, with the environments being relatively clean, considering the work taking place.
For all the hate on here about Brexit, people sure do love the biggest advantage of remaining in the EU and taking using that cheap foreign labour to keep the prices of goods nice and low.
Everyone supports a strike till it effects your ability to get a delcious sausage roll
Anybody else see products in shops and go wait this was a lot cheaper last month.
That’s a proper strike. None of this ‘we’re having a 12 hour strike in five weeks time from now, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll have another 12 hour strike four weeks later, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll escalate to a 24 hour strike in seven weeks’
26 comments
> More than 700 workers at a food manufacturing facility that supplies Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Morrisons and Marks and Spencer will strike from late November until the new year in a row over pay.
>Workers on the production line at the factory in Spalding, Lincolnshire, make own-brand salads, dips, sauces and deli produce for the UK’s major supermarkets.
>They have rejected a 6.5% pay offer from the factory’s owner, the fresh food manufacturer Bakkavor, and the strikes will begin on 25 November and last until 2 January.
>The Unite union claims many of the workers earn “just over 1p over the national minimum wage” and that some “are forced to use food banks”.
>Workers were previously set to strike in early November but the industrial action was postponed to allow the amended pay offer from Bakkavor to be voted on. The new deal was “overwhelmingly rejected” and talks between Bakkavor and Unite have since collapsed, the union said.
> It comes days after hundreds of workers at a factory in Aintree, near Liverpool, that makes Jacob’s Cream Crackers, Twiglets and Jaffa Cakes launched strike action in a dispute over pay.
> Unite’s general secretary, Sharon Graham, said: “The situation these workers face is exactly what is wrong with Britain’s economy today: A company earning millions and millions in profits expecting already low paid workers to take a pay cut while prices soar.
>“Unite will not tolerate attacks on our members’ jobs, pay or conditions and our Bakkavor members have the union’s complete backing as they strike for a better deal.”
They just announced the other day they’re closing two sites in that area, Sutton bridge and Leicester
Supermarkets: “Guys, we have to put prices up because of the pandemic and supply chain issues. We have no choice and would lose loads of money and jobs if we don’t, so be scared that will happen and accept the prices increases”
Also Supermarkets: “Wow, we’ve made record profits since operating costs didn’t go up that much but we increased prices!”
Workers and Employees of Supermarkets: “Great! So, can we get a payrise to counteract these higher prices?”
Supermarkets: “Oh no, we’d be ruined if we paid you more money, honestly. You can trust us”
Newspapers: “Record levels of inflation totally unrelated to huge profits seen in the corporate world amid rising prices”
Meanwhile the supermarkets are refusing to buy eggs from UK farmers because it will lower their profit margins.
Greed, greed, greed.
Shop local.
Yes! That’s fantastic news, more strikes please (no I’m not being sarcastic, I genuinely think it’s time for a big general strike).
The headline here is so misleading it isn’t even funny
Screw these corporations and their insane profits taking away from
People once again
Solidarity with them and it will hopefully have a knock on effect on supermarkets so we at Unite can win another industrial dispute.
The union says these workers earn minimum wage. Minimum wage goes up by 10% in April, in line with inflation. This company is a clown if they think 6% seems reasonable lol
I empathise a lot with factory workers. They do so much hard work/graft meanwhile I’m in my cushy office job WFH. My missus worked in a biscuit factory for three days before I told her to quit as I could see she was hating it. We aren’t that desperate for money, my salary can be stretched if I make some cutbacks on myself but it would be worth it not seeing her *that* shattered. She said it was awful, the people were the highlight but she said even they warned her dont get stuck here. It’ll wear you down.
I live in this town and that factory is probably the biggest employer in the town. Solidarity with them! Five weeks is a proper strike.
Weirdly written headline
Morrisons and tesco don’t have a factory.
They are a shop, not a manufacturer. They don’t MAKE anything themselves.
This is a factory that counts tesco and morrisons as its customers/retailers, along with other stores.
Just like many other factories.
Bakavor. Does the factory only make products for that part of the country? Wondering how far away the stocking issues will reach.
seems to be getting harder to use the excuse that strikers are just privledged golden credit card unionists who earn more than everyone else in the entire world
Not to defend the supermarkets, but the issues here is with Bakkavor (probably the biggest company you’ve never heard of) and how they treat employees. If everyone at Bakkavor walked out in solidarity with their colleagues at Spalding, the UK food supply chain would collapse overnight for many staple goods.
This could fuck our Christmas up. But GOOD ON THEM. I’ll happily eat baked beans for Xmas dinner if it means people are forced to start paying decent wages to the people who do most for us, for a change.
Shelf stackers, nurses, train drivers, bin men – the value of these people to society is far greater than most of the people who earn far more.
I was concerned until I read they make salad things
Record inflation combined with record profits. The entire system is making last ditch efforts to profiteer as much as possible before the inevitable collapse.
Some of the common items we buy in our weekly shop have gone up over 30%.. i refuse to now buy these items and changed to other brands.
Supermarkets are gouging the hell out of the consumers!
being savy we have actually dragged our weekly shop down from about £60-70 down to £40-£50.
sure, no treat items anymore because the gov dont want anyone to have fun or treats these days, but hey.. thats life.
Strike away workers! strike away!
I worked in Morrisons til a few weeks ago.
This’ll most likely get burried since I’m so late, but Morrisons was recently bought out by a company that’s known for just asset stripping
It’s been a downward spiral at the store I worked at, with 2 staff, 1 on checkout and 1 on self scans for four hours… people screaming at us for what’s literally outside of our control. Current Morrisons disgusts me. They deserve all the bad shit that hits them.
Fuck yes! So happy about retail strikes! Literally paid the bare minimum and never strike. Also, food retail workers were essential workers, and completely shafted in the pandemic.
One up side to Brexit is that it is now possible to get agency workers in.
Worked at the Bakkavor sites indirectly a few times. Spalding, Leicester and Sutton Bridge (which I was at just this week oddly). It’s your typical factory that thrives on cheap foreign labour. The basic jobs are almost all foreigners too. Factory conditions aren’t actually that bad, with the environments being relatively clean, considering the work taking place.
For all the hate on here about Brexit, people sure do love the biggest advantage of remaining in the EU and taking using that cheap foreign labour to keep the prices of goods nice and low.
Everyone supports a strike till it effects your ability to get a delcious sausage roll
Anybody else see products in shops and go wait this was a lot cheaper last month.
That’s a proper strike. None of this ‘we’re having a 12 hour strike in five weeks time from now, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll have another 12 hour strike four weeks later, and if that doesn’t work, we’ll escalate to a 24 hour strike in seven weeks’