Read this article in:
23 January, 2012
Unilever workers at UK factories are midway through 11 days of strikes, as the world’s third largest consumer products company refuses to talk to unions about alternatives to its unacceptable and unilateral decision to close the final salary pension scheme.
Workers organised by three ICEM affiliates, Unite the Union, GMB, and Union of Shop and Distributive Workers (USDAW), calculate that between 20-40% will be slashed from pensions of thousands of staff, at a time when the multinational corporation posted enormous profits of 4.6€ billion in 2010, and awarded CEO Paul Polman a 50% salary increase in a single year.
Well known Unilever brands include PG Tips, Marmite, Pot Noodle, Dove, Comfort, and Surf.
Unilever was founded on positive social principles but has aggressively followed a strategy of job cuts and outsourcing of over 100,000 of its global workforce over the last ten years, removing any semblance of social responsibility over work terms in the production of food and household goods.
In closing the UK final salary pension scheme, Unilever management once again prioritises profits over staff, and breaks a promise to protect pensions for long-serving workers. The UK unions are fighting back. The first ever strike ever at Unilever in the UK started on 9 December and moved management to cancel Christmas parties and bonuses for its staff.
This second wave of strike actions started at 06h59 on 18 January, with 11 days of rolling strikes throughout the company’s UK production. It runs until midnight, 28 January.
All 7,000 Unilever workers in the UK will see pension earnings hit by this attack as current final scheme members are moved to the inferior Career Average Revalued Earnings (CARE) scheme from 1 July 2012, and CARE conditions will be decreased across the board.
On 10 January, Unite dispatched its Battle Bus (see Union News video), taking protesting workers from Unite headquarters in Holborn to Unilever’s London office on Victoria Embankment.
ICEM joined the noisy Battle Bus and protest on the front steps of the firm’s London offices, with the company keeping union leaders from entering. Unite General Secretary Len McCluskey told demonstrators, “How dare a company that generates massive profits attack your pensions, which you have saved for. We are not prepared to stand back and do nothing.”
The current strike action is hitting the following UK plants, with the products they produce:
• Purfleet – Hellmann’s mayonnaise, Flora
• Trafford Park – PG Tips tea
• Burton – Marmite
• Norwich – Coleman’s mustard and sauces
• Crumlin, Wales – Pot Noodle
• Leeds – Dove Deodorant, Lynx, Sure
• Port Sunlight – fabric – Comfort, Persil
• Warrington – Persil, Omo
• Gloucester – Wall’s Ice Cream
The other sites involved in strike action – Unilever UK (Central Resources) Ltd are:
• Port Sunlight – R&D site
• St David’s Park (Near Ewloe in Wales) – IT site
• Colworth, Bedford – R&D site
Unite National Officer, Jennie Formby said, “Unilever needs to clean up its act, get back to the table before it ruins its business’ reputation for good.”
The unions have calculated alternative business options for Unilever to make the same savings without cutting pensions. For more information on the campaign and to send a message to Unilever CEO Paul Polman, go to the Unite website here.
Watch Unite’s excellent three minute film “Unilever – not as clean as it claims” here.