Strike threatens Easter supplies for Britain's major supermarkets
3rd March 2009
The supply of meat to Britain's best known supermarkets is under
threat this Easter as workers at Vion, Britain's biggest meat
supplier, begin voting on strike action.
With Vion refusing to even discuss its proposals to cut 900 jobs
with the union's national officials, Unite the union says it has no
other option but to ballot 2,300 workers at sites across England,
Scotland and Wales.
A vote in favour of strike action could mean that supplies of
meat to supermarkets including Tesco, Asda, Sainsbury's and Marks
& Spencer (M&S) will be affected in the run up to the
Easter break.
Vion has refused to stop the clock ticking on redundancy notices
to give the union time to outline alternative proposals to job cuts
even though Unite is calling on Vion to enter into meaningful
national discussions with senior Unite officials.
In one case, Vion has given workers at Welsh Country Foods only
30 days notice of dismissal; Unite is demanding that no worker at
the company is given less than 90 days redundancy consultation.
Vion blames the jobs cuts on the need to reorganise the business
and the loss of a significant proportion of work from M&S, Asda
and Sainsbury's. But the union believes the proposals are an
opportunistic attempt to use the credit crunch as an attempt to
slash jobs.
Unite's joint general secretary, Tony Woodley, said: "We believe
Vion's tactics have been appalling and underhand. This company
wants 900 loyal members of staff out of the door before they have
time to think. They will not even discuss these job cuts on a
national basis with the union. It's madness to try to make cuts
across a number of sites without national discussions.
"Unite has no choice but to ballot its members for strike
action. A yes vote means supplies of meat products to the major
supermarkets in the run up to Easter could be affected.
Chris Kaufman, national secretary for food and agriculture,
said: "We are demanding that Vion enter into meaningful national
discussions with senior Unite officials and explore all options to
avoid job cuts. We are prepared to sit down and talk to the company
about productivity and efficiency but they need to hear our
proposals from a national perspective. In tough times there needs
to be a sensible dialogue. Vion must stop the job cut
countdown."
Workers say that M&S must also shoulder some responsibility
for the cuts at Vion. Angry workers at Vion have accused M&S of
turning its back on Scotland and its ethics, following its decision
to transfer a significant proportion of its supply out of Vion
foods (Cambuslang) , which will result in significant
redundancies.
Vion foods in Cambuslang has a workforce of some 450 workers
producing prepared meals for supermarkets. M&S has announced
that it is pulling a significant amount of supply from Cambuslang
and moving it to a new build site in England owned by a different
supplier, where the staff will be on lower terms and
conditions.
M&S has claimed that it wishes to re-align the food lines
affected to a supplier who has a "core competence" in
preparing the products – yet some workers at this site have
supplied such products to M&S for over 20 years. The workers at
Cambuslang believe that the new suppliers are likely to be low cost
and as a consequence low pay will follow. Workers say this flies in
the face of M&S’s ethical principles and that Scottish workers
have become the latest victims of the race to the bottom.
ENDS
Contact: Ciaran Naidoo 07768 931 315
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