Judges Magistrate Threaten Strike Again Over Low Pay
Employees of Chivas Brothers in Scotland will be balloted for strike action afterwards Unite members voted to reject a pay freeze.
Members of Scotland'south largest union, Unite, voted by 91% to refuse a pay freeze in a consultative ballot later on a 'breakup in talks'.
Unite said the decision to reject the pay freeze was fabricated as a number of major drinks firms, including William Grant & Sons, Edrington and Diageo, offered substantial pay increases to their employees.
Chivas Brothers, the Scotch whisky arm of French firm Pernod Ricard, employs around one,600 workers in Scotland. Unite did not say how many Chivas Brothers workers are members of Unite, merely it is confirmed to be in the hundreds.
Elaine Dougall, Unite regional analogous officer, said: "Unite's members at Chivas Brothers are absolutely furious at the pay freeze being offered past the visitor and take demonstrated this through rejecting information technology by 91%.
"Other players in the industry are offering meaning pay rises whereas Chivas Brothers workers who have connected to work throughout the Covid pandemic and continued to boost the profits of the visitor are being offered nothing. It'southward completely unacceptable."
Unite pointed to Chivas Brothers' financial results in 2019, which saw the firm make a pre-revenue enhancement profit of £539 meg (US$733m) last year, a 22% increment from £442m (United states of america$601m) in 2018. In full-year 2020, Chivas Brothers' organic sales declined by 11% due to the pandemic.
Unite said it would now move to election its members for strike activeness, which could bear upon Chivas Brothers' Kilmalid site, Strathclyde grain distillery, and southern and northern operations.
Dougall added: "We will continue to printing difficult for a off-white pay offer but all options are now on the tabular array. Chivas Brothers accept an opportunity to do the right matter or they will face an escalating dispute unnecessarily created by their arrogance."
Chivas response
Jean-Christophe Coutures, Chivas Brothers' chairman and CEO, said: "We deeply value the hard piece of work and delivery of our teams during this crunch, and we are proud that we have been able to navigate these unprecedented times while maintaining 100% of jobs and salaries. We are equally proud of the open dialogue we take maintained with unions over the course of this year, having worked very closely with them throughout the Covid-19 crisis to develop an industry-leading safety system of work to ensure the wellbeing of both our team and partners, besides every bit the continued viability of our business.
"Similar many others, the Covid-nineteen crisis has negatively affected our business – and the wider Scotch whisky manufacture. The pandemic has led to record depression Scotch whisky sales (downwards 11% in our financial year 2020), a significantly-impacted global travel retail channel – an extremely important marketplace for Scotch – and increased costs to make all of our sites Covid-secure.
"We are very optimistic virtually the time to come of our business organisation, but in order to protect our long-term resilience while the crisis is ongoing, we took the necessary conclusion to implement a bacon freeze across the entire business for the by fiscal yr, while continuing to invest in our working environments, conditions and people – including our intention to create 75 additional permanent roles by June 2021.
"We entered into discussions with unions several months ago to seek culling means to reward our teams, including an increase to this yr's profit-related share programme and a guaranteed pay increase in 2021. Despite the rejection of this offer, we take withal honoured our delivery to enhance the share scheme, in recognition of the hard work and dedication of our teams during this nearly extraordinary twelvemonth."
In 2017, workers at Chivas Brothers' Kilmalid product site in Dumbarton went on strike in response to a pay offer from the visitor.
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Source: https://www.thespiritsbusiness.com/2020/12/chivas-workers-threaten-to-strike-over-pay-freeze/
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