SPALDING, England — Hundreds of Unite union members at the Bakkavor food factory here have been on strike for nearly five months fighting for better pay. Since Feb. 11 they have reinforced their picket lines, determined to defend their union.
At least 60 workers were on the picket line when Militant worker-correspondents showed up Feb. 13 to bring solidarity and help spread the word about their fight. Traffic was backed up past the factory, as dozens of strikers walked across the main entrance, delaying cars and trucks coming in and out.
“We’ve reorganized so we have enough people on all shift changes to have an impact,” Unite organizer Sam Luczynski told us.
Workers have been attempting to convince both delivery drivers and their co-workers not to cross the picket line. “Yesterday a lorry and a van turned around,“ Luczynski said.
Bosses are refusing to negotiate. They’re busing in strikebreakers from temp agencies and other factories and pressuring workers to break with the union and sign individual contracts. The strike is increasingly being fought over whether workers will have a union.
“They want us to become like other food factories, where people have no paid breaks, no overtime premium and no double-time for public holidays,” one striker said. Bakkavor bars workers from speaking publicly.
To broaden international solidarity with the strike, Unite organizers recently made a second trip to Reykjavik, Iceland, where they have won support from local unions and gotten media coverage. Iceland is home to major Bakkavor shareholders Agust and Lydur Gudmundsson.