{"id":823233,"date":"2026-03-13T14:56:23","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T14:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/823233\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T14:56:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T14:56:23","slug":"devastating-impact-on-northern-ireland-pubs-if-pay-dispute-strike-halts-deliveries-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/823233\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Devastating\u2019 impact on Northern Ireland pubs if pay dispute strike halts deliveries \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The impact of a potential strike over pay at Northern Ireland\u2019s largest drinks distributor would be \u201cdevastating\u201d for pubs and restaurants, it has been warned.<\/p>\n

Staff at Drinks Inc.<\/a> (Musgrave Distribution Ltd) who are members of Unite the Union<\/a> are to be balloted on industrial action from next week.<\/p>\n

If a strike goes ahead, Unite has warned of an \u201cimmediate halt\u201d to deliveries across the north.<\/p>\n

Unite represents all Drinks Inc. warehousing staff and 95% of its drivers.<\/p>\n

\"Ellie<\/a>\"Home<\/a><\/p>\n

Around 50 staff make over 1,000 deliveries of beverages, including non-alcoholic drinks, to pubs, off licences and other venues each week.<\/p>\n

The dispute centres on the interpretation of a three-year pay deal and claims that it should be revisited over an inflation escalator clause.<\/p>\n

The strike ballot opens on Tuesday and closes two weeks later on March 31.<\/p>\n

Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said the \u201crefusal of Drinks Inc to fulfil its commitment under the pay deal is completely unacceptable\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the workers go to the gates the impact will be devastating,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere will be an immediate halt to deliveries of all drinks by the company to pubs, restaurants and off-licenses across Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cDrinks Inc needs to recognise the strength of feeling among workers. Management must return to negotiations and deliver an inflation-proof pay increase. If they don\u2019t, they face the prospect of decisive strike action.\u201d<\/p>\n

Drinks Inc., which was founded in 2001, grew into one of Ireland\u2019s biggest independent beverage distributors, with a turnover of \u00a366m, before it was acquired in 2019 by Musgrave, the owners of SuperValu, Centra and Mace.<\/p>\n

It continues to operate as a stand-alone business.<\/p>\n

The Irish News approached Drinks Inc. for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The impact of a potential strike over pay at Northern Ireland\u2019s largest drinks distributor would be \u201cdevastating\u201d for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":823234,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5011],"tags":[785,44764,236808,15446,23341,216199,158770,1194,2835,31019,31954,179124,372,7484,62537,38027,1700,77,144238,110532,45765,15454,105,236809,14310,5484,21062,806,12982,236810,26108,4443,3116,1144,2841,24879,3209,214218,38797,15819,51343,110398,6801,29345,14835,33875,1200,16,15,9892,26295,19130,236811],"class_list":["post-823233","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-northern-ireland","tag-alcohol","tag-ale","tag-ales","tag-bar","tag-beer","tag-brew","tag-brewery","tag-budget","tag-cash","tag-cut","tag-damage","tag-decrease","tag-diet","tag-drink","tag-drinking","tag-duty","tag-economy","tag-entertainment","tag-excess","tag-excise","tag-fall","tag-glass","tag-health","tag-hops","tag-hospitality","tag-import","tag-increase","tag-industry","tag-ingredients","tag-lager","tag-leisure","tag-liver","tag-loss","tag-northern-ireland","tag-pay","tag-payment","tag-payments","tag-pint","tag-profit","tag-pub","tag-pump","tag-pumps","tag-recipe","tag-rise","tag-service","tag-staff","tag-tax","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-vat","tag-wage","tag-wages","tag-yeast"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823233","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823233"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823233\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/823234"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823233"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823233"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823233"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}