The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Strike action at one of South Holland’s biggest employers has been called-off, for now.
Members of the Unite Union had said that its members at Bakkavor’s Spalding site would be striking in a row over pay.
The union had a majority of its members vote for the strike and the dates were set for action to start next month.
It also accused the company of telling staff that Unite had refused to ballot staff on a 6.5 per cent offer.
The union said that was not the case, but would be balloting again.
“We have not refused to ballot on the 6.5 per cent. We refused to recommend the offer as we are within our right to do,” said the Unite Facebook post, which added Bakkavor had initially withdrawn the offer.
The union also added that there had been some areas where agreement was reached.
Pay talks for next year will begin in January and an uplift to overtime will be part of any offer.
There will also be formal discussions around the role of convenor, which had previously been full-time before Bakkavor said it wasn’t.
“Following ongoing discussions with Unite, we can confirm that we have reached an agreement that strike action will be suspended until the union has conducted a pay ballot with its members,” said a Bakkavor statement this week.
“We believe this is a positive step forward, as we know our Spalding colleagues would like to resolve the pay dispute as soon as possible.”
Around 700 members of Unite could have been involved in the action but the company said it had plans in place to maintain its supply chain.
- There was an error in last week’s report when we said that Bakkavor had ‘been able’ to resolve the issue, It should have read ‘unable’ to.
