Unions have accused Unilever of being “spiteful” and a “modern day scrooge” after the firm cancelled workers’ Christmas parties, hampers and bonuses in retaliation over their 36-hour strike.
More than 2,500 employees out of a total UK workforce of 7,000 are involved in the first ever industrial action involving the manufacturer of Marmite, Dove shampoo and PG Tips tea. They are unhappy at what they believe to be an “unacceptable attack” on their pensions.
The Anglo-Dutch group plans to axe its final salary scheme and move the 5,000 existing members to a less generous career average scheme by July 2012. But unions claim that the move will see the retirement income of thousands of staff slashed by up to 40%, a situation that led members to vote overwhelmingly for industrial action last month as the latest chapter in an eight-month-long dispute.
Some workers began mounting picket lines at sites ranging from Purfleet in Essex to Port Sunlight on Merseyside from 7pm last night and the walk-out will continue until 7am on Saturday morning.
But Unilever has now chosen to play hardball with the strikers by cancelling Christmas – even though similar tactics failed to work in British Airways long-running dispute with cabin crew but rather served to entrench positions. A Unilever spokesman said: “We felt it would be inappropriate to provide Christmas hampers or gift vouchers to our employees at the sites where industrial action is taking place.” They will be given to charity instead.
History of decency
A memo by one manager, seen by the Guardian, also indicated that all holiday requests for next year would be refused because of the possibility of further strike action.
“The unions have advised there may be more action in the new year. Therefore no holiday can be booked for next year,” the manager said, adding that no sick pay would be paid to employees who were absent between Friday 2 and Friday 9 December.
But Unite national officer, Jennie Formby, warned that the company was starting to tarnish its reputation for treating staff well.
“First Unilever slash pension, now they’re cancelling Christmas celebrations. Rather than sitting down with the unions and trying to settle this dispute, Unilever seem to be acting like a modern day scrouge. The company has a proud history of decency, but this spiteful behaviour is very bad for their reputation,” she said.
Unite as well as the UK’s two other largest unions, the GMB and Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers, who all have members working at Unilever, claim the group has not held talks about the dispute since October.
The company is trying to plug a pension gap of about £680 million and closed its final salary scheme to new joiners in 2008.
