Morrisons is facing a potential strike by hundreds of workers in a dispute over changes to their pensions that union leaders claim will leave them worse off by around £500 a year.
Approximately 1,000 members of Unite working as warehouse stock controllers, cooks, canteen staff, and administrators are being balloted for strike action to “protect their pensions and take home pay”.
The staff are based in warehouses in Cheshire and Wakefield that supply supermarkets and convenience stores run by Morrisons.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Unite is focussed on our members’ jobs, pay and conditions, and these unmerited changes to workers’ pensions will leave our members worse off every month.
“Unite will not stand for such behaviour from any employer, let alone one like Morrisons who is raking in massive profits in the midst of a cost-of-living crisis. Its flagrant profiteering and then cutting our members’ take-home pay is a disgrace.”
Unite alleges that workers are being forced to increase their own pension contributions while Morrisons reduces its own contributions by the same amount.
Other changes that the union is objecting to include workers being compelled to adopt a new “pick rate” (the speed at which items are packed from the warehouse shelves), the removal of a service award, enforced changes to job roles, and a failure to follow absence policies correctly.
Unite national officer Adrian Jones added: “Our members provide a vital service ensuring supermarket shelves are full. Yet Morrisons have decided to unilaterally impose changes to their pensions that will leave them worse off and changes to the conditions that no one wants.
“Morrisons need to see sense and reverse these changes or they will see the anger of our members on the picket line.”
Unite’s ballot opened yesterday and will close on 9 May. The union stated that should the ballot be successful, and if no concessions are made by Morrisons, industrial action would take place this spring and summer.
Morrisons has declined to comment.
NAM Implications:
- No retailer needs this type of scalable problem.
- And Morrisons even more so…
- Availability issues will now be added to debt pressures.
- While staff morale sinks lower…
