SPALDING, England — Now into the eighth week of their strike, hundreds of Unite union members at the Bakkavor food factory here voted by 81% to reject the bosses’ latest pay offer.
The workers walked out Sept. 27 after rejecting a pay raise below recent price increases. It included a one-off payment of 50 pounds ($63). The only thing the bosses’ new offer raised was to increase that one-time payment to 350 pounds.
The determination of the strikers remains solid, expressed in the high turnout on picket lines and 100 workers joining the union since the strike began.
Unite organizer Sam Luczynski visited Iceland recently, where the strike received support from the Efling trade union, as well as major media coverage. Iceland is home to Bakkavor’s main shareholders, brothers Agust and Lydur Gudmundsson.
“At stake in this pay fight is maintaining a strong union at the Spalding factory,” East Midlands Unite organizer Sam Hennessy told a Nov. 6 union meeting here, to set an example for the company’s 21 other U.K. plants.
“Workers at Spalding have maintained paid breaks and shift premiums that have been eroded in other plants. The company has said it wants to revisit these terms and conditions at Spalding — conditions that the workers here have fought hard through the union to defend,” Hennessy said.
Supermarket shelves are emptying of some Bakkavor products in the run-up to Christmas, especially soups, dips and wraps. Tesco, the U.K.’s biggest supermarket chain, “appears to be the most affected,” the Grocer magazine reported Nov. 6.
The company is threatening to move production from Spalding to other plants and is attempting to bypass the union by offering to settle wage raises with individual workers.
Media coverage of the impact of the strike has been growing in the last couple of weeks, widening openings to win broader union solidarity.
Send messages of support to Unite East Midlands, 5 Kesteven Street, Lincoln, LN5 7LH or email: education.eastmids@unitetheunion.org. Send strike fund donations to Unite East Midlands Region, 1% Fund, Account 20173975; Sort Code 60-83-01.