Unite is representing more than 600 employees at ready meal supplier Oscar Mayer, and the union says the changes will see staff lose up to a huge £3,000-a-year
Around £700million of taxpayers’ cash has been invested in a firm which has been accused of using “abhorrent” fire-and-rehire tactics.
More than 600 staff at ready meal supplier Oscar Mayer have been embroiled in a row with parent company Pemberton Asset Management over the major restructuring scheme.
Unite – the union representing many of the workers – said most of them are on “barely” more than minimum wage and the changes will see them lose up to £3,000-a-year. In response, it has urged local authorities investing in Pemberton to boycott it until bosses scrap the plans targeting their workforce – who have repoprtedly been on strike since September over the plans.
Wrexham, where one Oscar Mayer site is based, has investments involving Pemberton and has already passed a motion that there will be no further investment due to the dispute.
And last Wednesday, Unite held a protest outside the East Riding of Yorkshire Council where it urged it to stop funding in Pemberton. The council’s pension fund has already invested £40million in the firm.
Oscar Mayer says the changes have saved 2,500 jobs, and were “absolutely necessary to ensure it can continue to be a long-term sustainable business”. Pemberton Asset Management also told the Mirror hundreds of jobs have been saved as a result of the operational changes.
But Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Councils nationwide will be outraged that their pension funds back a company that is using the most disgraceful employment practices to attack its workers. Pemberton Asset Management is wrecking its reputation and business ties by pursuing fire-and-rehire at Oscar Mayer. Unite won’t rest until these appalling plans are abandoned.”
It comes as the Labour government vows to end poor business practices under Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) frameworks that protect workers. Unite called for fire-and-rehire to be “banned outright” and said while the new legislation has loopholes, Pemberton would have “far more difficulty trying to impose it and has rushed these attacks to avoid it coming in”.
Pemberton seized 85% control of Oscar Mayer, which also has a factory in southeast London, in 2023 in a debt-to-equity swap. Before the fallout, the firm injected £55million into the business so it could continue to supply chilled meals to Tesco, Asda, Greggs, Aldi
and Waitrose.
Unite has since accused the firm of “unnecessary attacks on these workers” – many of whom they say are vulnerable and do not speak English as a first language.
A motion tabled by Plaid Cymru councillor Marc Jones called on the authority to formally disagree with Pemberton’s management decisions at Oscar Mayer.
Mr Jones told the full council meeting: “This dispute goes to the heart of what sort of Wrexham we want. Do we want it to be a place of decent wages, good working conditions and a motivated workforce? Do we want it to be a forward-looking area
for employment?
“Or do we want to see it characterised by a 19th century approach to worker-boss relations, where anyone who disagrees with the employer can be fired and then rehired on worse pay and conditions?”
The fire-and-rehire feud came as the government consults on its Make Work Pay plan, which aims to cull schemes that contradict good ESG practice.
The results of a consultation on strengthening remedies against troubling ESG behaviour, which ran from October 21 to December 2, are due to be published.
Viktor Pomichal, a business sustainability expert and managing director at FTI consulting, said fire-and-rehire procedures create
“extremely distressing” times for employees. He added: “They are also extremely disruptive for the business.
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Mr Pomichal said it was a welcome step to see Unite directly appeal to councils. He explained: “Recognising ESG as a way of having a dialogue with financial stakeholders is positive – a good, new step. I think this is clearly a very effective way of framing their arguments. There has to be an understanding of what is best for the business.”
A Pemberton spokesperson said: “Pemberton injected significant capital and recruited a highly experienced management team to fix the issues that the company was facing, with the aim of stabilising the business and securing the long-term viability for the business and its employees. Central to this effort was helping the company achieve an outcome which saved hundreds of jobs.”
A a spokesperson for Oscar Mayer said: “In the context of the commercial challenges faced by the business, operational changes implemented by the management of Oscar Mayer and significant capital injections by Pemberton have saved over 2,500 jobs.
“The recent changes to employee terms, which resulted in an average loss of £20 per week for impacted employees, were triggered by the loss of a significant contract, which represented 25% of the business volume at the Wrexham production facility. The alternative would have been a reduction in capacity at the Wrexham production site, resulting in a large number of redundancies, impacting up to 500 employees.
“Under these circumstances, the changes introduced are absolutely necessary to ensure that Oscar Mayer can continue to be a long-term sustainable business and protect jobs in the local community. Without these changes the reality is that all jobs at our Wrexham site would have been at risk.”
