Bakkavor denies claims of breaching ethical trading regulations and says Spalding strike is not disrupting business
A food manufacturer has denied claims put forward by a union that it is breaching ethical trading regulations - and says the strike is not disrupting its business.
Workers at Bakkavor’s West Marsh Road factory in Spalding have been taking industrial action since September in a dispute over pay.
Yesterday Unite said it had lodged a complaint to the Ethical Trading Initiative - which ensures compliance with international labour standards in the global supply chains - along with calling on customers from M&S to help support its members.
The union says that Spalding workers are paid just over 10p over minimum wage and wants a pay rise of 81p an hour.
This is disputed by Bakkavor, which says it put forward a ‘strong’ offer of 7.8% to lowest paid workers and 6.4% for other grades in September.
A spokesman from the company said: “As highlighted in our trading update, Unite has failed to disrupt our business, despite their continued strike action in the face of a very strong and improved final offer that has been put on the table.
“As with their run of emotive and false claims - for example, disruption to Christmas food supply, ‘years of real term pay cuts’ and that ‘the majority of the workforce only earn 10p above the National Living Wage’ - their new tactic of claiming that we are breaching ethical trading regulations is also untrue.
"In September, Bakkavor put forward an improved offer of 7.8% to its lowest paid colleagues and 6.4% across all other grades. Over the past three years, CPI (Consumer Price Index) in the UK has grown by 21%:
“At our Spalding site over the same three-year period, the pay rate has risen by between 21.2% and 22.8% for colleagues - above inflation for the period.
“Furthermore, we think it useful to confirm as a matter of fact that the cost of labour at Spalding is the highest across all our UK sites - something that sits at the very heart of the problem with Unite’s position on this matter."
"Given our significant efforts to engage in meaningful negotiations and the strong offer we put forward, Unite’s ongoing calls for rejection made it obvious that the 2024 collective bargaining process was exhausted.
“Therefore, we lawfully proceeded to offer colleagues the proposed pay offer on an individual basis."