Heinz Means Strikes

A seasonal hat tip to Phil Wheeler for spotting this Guardian article on a tasty industrial relations dispute at the huge Heinz factory close to Wigan in Lancashire.

The main union represented at Heinz is UNITE and they claim that 15% pay awards to management at the plant are hard to digest with shop-floor workers being offered only a fifth of this, barely enough to cover the rising cost of living. The article points to the breath-taking scale of production at the factory - over two million cans of beans and soup are processed there every day! And this is a factory with over 250 managers - or one in seven of the total workforce! Perhaps they should carry the can and take a squeeze in pay in these difficult days?

Average job tenure at the plant is very long - seventy per cent of existing employees have worked for Heinz for more than 10 years and 34 per cent for more than 20 years. Heinz claims that their wages and working conditions are ahead of comparable jobs at other businesses in the food processing industry - implying that they do not deserve their festive tag of playing Eb-Bean-ezer Scrooge.

Despite the massive volume of bean production and high profits, there seems little wind of change to bring about a settlement to this long-running dispute.