Northern reporter
SEVENTY workers at a Manchester pallet factory are staging continuous strike action against a transnational corporation over pay.
The Chep UK workers at Trafford want a 5 per cent pay increase and have rejected a proposed below-inflation 2 per cent offer.
They staged 24-hour walkouts on December 3, 6, 10 and 13, before launching an open-ended strike on December 17.
Unite north west regional officer Ian McCluskey said: “It is a straightforward strike over pay.
“We checked with Companies House and found that over the last two years Chep has increased its pre-tax profits by 173 per cent per worker.
“They are sitting on a big pot of gold and it is going to get bigger when they issue their results for 2021.
“A 2 per cent pay rise is a massive pay cut, and it follows increases of 1 and 2 per cent in the years before. Our red line is 5 per cent backdated to July 1.”
He said he believed the company had been taken by surprise by the workers’ strength of feeling — including a surge in trade union membership.
Picket Malcom Bostock told the Morning Star: “The mood on the picket line is that we are hungry for this action. We are all up for it and full of beans.
“The public are being really good. We have got former employees turning up to cheer us on and asking what we need. 70 per cent of the wagon drivers arriving at the picket line are turning back.”
A Chep UK spokesman said: “We are continuing to operate on a business-as-usual basis and will stay fully focused on providing an excellent service to both our customers and to the community.”
