Strikes at maker of Goodfella’s pizzas as staff battle pay cuts
BRITAIN’S biggest food producer, 2 Sisters, has been hit by the first of a wave of strikes after workers complained it planned pay cuts to fund the new National Living Wage.
According to staff representatives more than 1,000 workers have been drawn into a series of disputes over pay at the group, which makes Fox’s biscuits, Goodfella’s pizza and supermarket meals for a number of leading chains. One strike took place last week and a further three are looming at the company’s sites across the UK.
The row is the latest linked to April’s introduction of the National Living Wage to replace the lower National Minimum Wage. Workers have complained that other benefits and overtime are being cut to help fund the rise.
Birmingham-based 2 Sisters Food Group is owned by multimillionaire Ranjit Singh Boparan and is chaired by Labour peer and former ITV chairman Charles Allen. A recent report suggested that Boparan’s net worth rose £50million to £850million last year.
John Higgins, secretary for the Midlands branch of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, said: ‘This dispute is escalating. People are becoming very frustrated. We’re at the factory gate trying to save people on low pay £1,500 or £2,000 a year, while
we read in the papers that Boparan could be one of Birmingham’s newest billionaires, which has not gone down well with staff.’
The Mail on Sunday first revealed the escalating row at the firm’s Pennine Foods factory in Sheffield last month. Hundreds of workers have since taken part in a strike at the site, following complaints that workers would be worse off under new contracts. A further 48-hour strike is now planned at the firm’s Rogerstone factory in Newport starting on Thursday morning.
In a separate dispute, staff at its Pizza Factory site in Nottingham began voting in a two-week ballot on Monday. Sources also said its Fox’s Biscuits factory in Batley, West Yorkshire, could be on the brink of balloting for industrial action, possibly within days, pending management’s response to existing complaints over changes to pay.
Negotiations are being led by the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union at Sheffield, Rogerstone and Batley and by Unite in Nottingham.
Workers have also begun campaigning outside Marks & Spencer shops in the Sheffield area with more protests planned.
2 Sisters has told staff it plans to cut Sunday and Bank Holiday pay, overtime and time off in lieu for working unsociable hours, but denies it is clawing back money to pay for the National Living Wage.
A spokesman said: ‘The Pennine and Newport sites have been negotiating for over a year to realign terms and conditions to make them fairer to staff.’