‘Sabotage’ Union accuses biscuit factory owners of slowly moving work down to England over past 10 years
Unite also believes that Pladis, the Turkish-owned parent company, is now not fulfilling its duties to look at alternatives to 500 Scots redundancies
UNION leaders and workers have condemned what they call the “sabotage” of a historic Scottish biscuit factory – saying half of its work has already been lost to England.
Nearly 500 workers are under threat of redundancy over plans to close the McVitie’s biscuit factory at Tollcross in the east end of Glasgow.
Union Unite believes Pladis, the parent company – based in Middlesex with Turkish owners – is not fulfilling its duty to look at alternatives to redundancy by engaging directly with an action group led by Finance and Economy Secretary Kate Forbes about those options.
McVitie’s owner Pladis said the Tollcross plant will close in the second half of 2020 with some staff angry that they are now going “the whole hog” and moving all production down south.
Unite, which is campaigning for a change of heart to save the Scottish jobs and has been tracking a “downward spiral” of the factory, says that over 10 years it has lost nearly 50 per cent of its normal manufacturing volume to Pladis factories in England.
McVitie’s is a staple of everyday consumer life, as it creates an array of nearly 20 brand name biscuits ranging Digestives, Rich Tea and Hobnobs to Club, Penguin and Jaffa Cakes.
Unite wants the Turkish owners to work with the multi-agency Pladis Action Group to explore a new site or a bespoke centre of excellence for manufacturing in the sector including a distribution base which could get the support of public money as part of a taxpayer-funded rescue bid .
Unions are also raising concern for the future of Scottish manufacturing saying there is a “trend” for getting out of Scotland by companies based outside the country to migrate work to England or other countries.
In 2019, it was announced that the Cummins diesel engine factory in Cumbernauld was to close with the loss of 130 jobs with work transferred to factories in England.
There are also concerns that Pladis has not engaged directly with the Action Group.
Consultation
IT has forged ahead with consultation on redundancies, even though unions have been told the first cuts would not take place until December 31 this year, with the last by August 31 next year.
Unions are concerned that manufacturing has been taken away from McVitie’s only remaining Scottish bakery to be placed in sites where there has been investment in production lines – its other UK factories in Carlisle, Leicestershire, Sheffield, Manchester and Harlesden which employ 4,200 people.
The biscuit factory where Hobnobs are manufactured received nearly £1 million in taxpayer funds until three years ago when it drew the last tranche of public funds.
Scottish Enterprise approved over £1,011,000 in grant funding to Pladis – with just over £895,085 being used.
Part of that included £193,000 taxpayer support approved by Scottish Enterprise to develop the McVitie’s Nibbles product in a £2.4m project to bring the brand to Tollcross from Turkey.
The rest of the fund was orginally approved in 2014 to allow for the upskilling of staff at Tollcross. Scottish Enterprise says it resulted in 485 jobs being safeguarded.
United Biscuits (UK) Limited, trading as Pladis, made a £63m pre-tax profit in 2019 – £5m more than the previous year.
Four years ago, the GMB union raised fears for the factory’s future and sought reassurances from managers over the factory.
The union raised worries Pladis was not committed long-term having been silent over the future of modernisation investment at the Tollcross site. Pladis had said it had invested more than £5m in the previous few years.
The strength of feeling out there in Glasgow and beyond is massive, the public are behind the workforce
Now, union leaders have revealed how there had been a “sabotage” of the factory with the shipping out of responsibility for biscuit-making to England
Work lost
ACCORDING to Unite, Tollcross now produces 21,000 tonnes of biscuits having moved thousands of tonnes of production from the factory in the past five to 10 years to be taken up by factories in Harlesden, London and Manchester. According to its analysis of company documents, there has been at least 11,000 tonnes of work lost to England since 2016 alone.
The latest shift of production came in 2020, when 1,198 tonnes of Digestives biscuit manufacturing was moved to Harlesden and Manchester. In 2019, 3,774 tonnes shifted to Harlesden.
Some 2,857 tonnes of Rich Tea, 2,686 tonnes of Digestives and 644 tonnes of Hobnobs production moved to English sites between 2016 and 2019.
Unite industrial officer Pat McIlvogue, who is on the action group, said the company owners have “manufactured the situation” where their assessments of the efficiency of the factory on a cost per tonne basis was set up to fail – by moving so much manufacturing volume down south.
“In the last two years in particular they have transferred the work from Scotland to English sites and that has left a lack of volume in Tollcross that has been manipulated into a lack of efficiency and increase in the cost per tonne.
“Yet the company’s position is that they have too much capacity in Scotland and not enough volume. The fact is that despite the company not investing in the factory and letting it erode on the vine, the site was still hitting performance indicators while at the same time the company are moving volume from Scotland down to factories in Manchester, Harlesden and anywhere else they could stick it.
“This is a situation that has been manufactured by the company, to suit a narrative to try and attempt to give an objective justification on the closure.”
Generations of families have worked at the Glasgow biscuit works which first opened in 1925 as part of the Macfarlane and Lang’s Victoria Biscuit Works.
The McVitie’s presence in Scotland goes back to the original Scottish biscuit maker, McVitie & Price, which was established in 1830 in Edinburgh. The Digestive was a breakthrough innovation in 1892 that is still at the core of the business.
Known as McVitie & Price, it opened a vast London factory in 1902 where it still manufactures. The Digestive first got a chocolate covering in 1925, while the Jaffa Cake went on sale two years later.
Public funding
THE Penguin biscuit was developed by a rival Glasgow baker from 1932, and later became part of McVitie’s. In 1948, it merged with Glasgow’s Macfarlane and Lang to become United Biscuits. Unite Scotland said it was pushing for more public funding support to ensure that the factory is not just a relic of history.
“Our first challenge was not to issue the redundancy notices because it was totally premature. There was no need if there was not going to be anyone made redundant this year and it was to be a phased redundancy process,” said Mr McIlvogue. “Kate Forbes wrote to Pladis and requested them to engage directly with the action group we have set up to look at alternatives to closure which is part of their statutory obligation to mitigate the need for compulsory redundancies.
“The company was claiming the site at Tollcross needed £30m of infrastructure improvement to make it watertight. We don’t believe that to be the case, but anyway we felt it would be better to put any investment into a new facility that can give better efficiency and diversification into other products. Pladis won’t do this without support from the Scottish Government – it may come in the way of subsidy, or reduced rates on a greenfield site, development money.”
‘Betrayal’
PAUL Smith, a McVitie’s machinery operator from the Save Our Jobs Tollcross said the workers had felt a “betrayal” having worked through the pandemic to keep production going. He said there was a fear that the factory owners were “not interested in listening” to alternatives.
“The strength of feeling out there in Glasgow and beyond is massive, the public are behind the workforce,” he said.
“We are relying on the Scottish Government coming through with a financial commitment – hopefully that will convince the company to rethink their plans.
“The Tollcross McVitie’s is like a family business. Generations of the same families have worked there – if it closes it will do terrible damage to the entire area.”
A Pladis spokesperson said: “We continue to engage with our employees and their representatives on a weekly basis and remain committed to a meaningful consultation with them.
“We have also been engaging directly with the co-chairs of the action group – Cabinet Secretary Kate Forbes and Councillor Susan Aitken – on a regular basis.”
Nicola Sturgeon said during First Minister’s Questions that the Scottish Government will “do everything we possibly can” to stop the closure.
“We cannot force a company to accept offers of help that we give, but we will do everything we can to make sure that those offers are credible and do everything to make sure that they are accepted,” Ms Sturgeon said.