Written evidence submitted by Unite, the Union (2SP0004)

1. This evidence is submitted by Unite, the UK’s largest trade union with over 1.4 million members across all sectors of the economy including manufacturing, financial services, transport, food and agriculture, construction, energy and utilities, information technology, service industries, health, local government and the not for profit sector. Unite also organises in the community, enabling those who are not in employment to be part of our union.

2. Executive summary

-          Swift action is needed to put right systemic failures that have come to light at the 2 Sisters West Bromwich site

-          A change in workplace culture must be at the heart of improvement action, with respect for workers, their trade union representatives and legitimate union organisation

-          What has happened at 2 Sisters is symptomatic of the pressures within the wider food industry; structural tensions include increasing downward cost pressures, driven by supermarket competition, impacting supply chains including food manufacturing

-          This has an impact on the intensification of the pace of work and the speed of lines

-          A culture of bullying and fear at the site went unaddressed by all levels of management. Abuse of workers and union officers was rife

-          If the findings of the EHRC inquiry into the meat and poultry processing sectors had been fully implemented, the workplace culture would have been improved with positive consequences for workers and food hygiene

-          The company has the lowest pay and conditions compared with its competitors. The race to the bottom has to be reversed and a workplace culture created that has the highest standards on labour rights and food hygiene

-          Unite shares the disquiet of unions and wider civic society about regulatory capture of enforcement agencies

-          Cuts in budgets are affecting the capacity and effectiveness of a wide range of enforcement bodies

-          Unite is optimistic that positive change can be effected and is urgently pursuing a resolution to the problems at West Bromwich. It is calling for swift and comprehensive change at every level of the company to raise pay and conditions, working practices and procedure.

Introduction

3. Food manufacturing is the UK’s largest manufacturing sector. Unite is the largest trade union in the food chain, with thousands of members across agriculture, food and drink processing and manufacturing, retail, logistics and hospitality, and in related sectors such as health, local government, and printing.

4. In poultry processing Unite has membership in all the UK’s major firms, including 2 Sisters Food Group, Moy Park (now owned by Pilgrims Pride/JBS), Cargill and Faccenda.

5. For many years Unite and its predecessor union, the TGWU, has represented members at 2 Sisters’ original sites in the Midlands (including the West Bromwich site) and in companies that have been taken over by 2 Sisters. These include Lloyd Maunders, Northern Foods, Bernard Matthews, and Vion. The union also has members at non-poultry/meat 2 Sisters companies. Unite has therefore a long history with 2 Sisters, and is in a unique position, observing from the inside how the workplace culture and treatment of workers at 2 Sisters varies from site to site, subsidiary to subsidiary, and over time.

6. The livelihoods of thousands of Unite’s members depend not just on the site at West Bromwich but on dozens of 2SFG operations in every region of the UK, and upstream and downstream in the supply chain.

7. It is vital that 2 Sisters puts right the systemic failures that have come to light at West Bromwich. Acting swiftly, it must regain the confidence of its retail customers, the public, regulators and Parliament that the food it produces is safe to eat and produced to the highest standards. At the heart of this improvement action must be a change in workplace culture, with respect for workers, their trade union representatives and legitimate union organisation.

The UK food industry

8. In a 2017 paper on labour trends in UK food manufacturing, Heasman and Morley noted that:

“Labour and job issues are compounded further by the structural tensions many commentators see in the food sector with increasing downward cost pressures, driven by supermarket competition, impacting supply chains including food manufacturing.”[1]

9. The scope of this Parliamentary Inquiry is to look into the allegations of food safety breaches at 2SFG, and their potential ramifications for the poultry sector and the wider food chain; and into the role of regulatory and accreditation bodies. It is not investigating the structure of the wider food industry.

10. However, in Unite’s view what has happened at 2 Sisters is symptomatic of the pressures within the wider food industry described above.

Poultry and meat processing

11. Meat processing, including in the poultry industry, is difficult work in difficult working conditions. Recruiting and retaining workers is a continual process because of high levels of turnover; workers face low rates of pay, poor working conditions (e.g. temperatures, humidity) and intensive levels of physical demand. There is intense competition between companies, and the pace of work is also intensifying. This is a global issue for workers and their trade unions. In September 2017, the International Union of Food Workers (IUF), a global union federation of which Unite is an affiliate, reported that US chicken companies are seeking government approval to increase line speeds from 140 to 170 birds per minute. The move is “strongly opposed by unions, academics and meat inspectors citing worker safety and food safety concerns. Poultry processing lines have injury and illness rates already 64% above the national average as workers suffer cuts, infections and repetitive strain injuries”.[2]

12. The consequences for those working in this highly competitive and difficult industry were examined by the Equalities and Human Rights Commission in its inquiry into recruitment and employment in the meat and poultry processing sectors in England and Wales.[3] Though focussing on the unequal treatment of agency workers, the EHRC highlighted systemic problems within the industry’s workplace cultures and widespread labour abuses.

13. Unite was one of the stakeholder organisations in the study and contributed to its findings. 

14. Amongst its findings were many that are relevant when investigating the situation that has arisen at 2 Sisters’ West Bromwich site. The EHRC found evidence of:

-          physical and verbal abuse

-          segregation of shifts or production lines by nationality

-          on food hygiene, a lack of adequate training for some agency staff and practices which disregarded food hygiene

-          a need for effective and adequately resourced regulators

-          the significant power of supermarkets

-          the correlation between a strong union presence and protection for workers

15. The recommended management practices contained in the EHRC guidance were developed:

• To protect workers from discrimination
• To raise awareness of employment rights
• To help workers raise issues of concern
• To promote integration and cohesion
• To promote a safe workplace
• To reduce job insecurity
• To promote regular employment

16. In our judgement, and with the addition of respect for trade union organisation, if these objectives in the EHRC study had been fully implemented and applied consistently by 2 Sisters at the West Bromwich site, the workplace culture would have been greatly improved with positive consequences for workers and for food hygiene.

17. However, a culture of bullying and fear at the West Bromwich site went unaddressed by all levels of management. Intense pressure to fulfil retailers’ orders and volumes at the same time as a continual drive to cut costs, Unite believes, created the pre-conditions in which the dangerous food hygiene practices identified by the Guardian and ITV developed.

2 Sisters workplace culture

18. 2 Sisters is the UK’s largest food company by turnover. It has annual sales of more than £3 billion.

19. Within the poultry processing sector 2 Sisters has the lowest pay, conditions and working practices compared with its competitors, who have higher shift premia, overtime rates, and other payments taking hourly rates to around £8-9, together with more generous annual holiday entitlement and other benefits.

20. 2 Sisters is one of many companies in the UK food sector whose workforce has a large proportion of migrant workers, and workers from a wide range of ethnic groups and nationalities. As mentioned above, 2 Sisters Food Group is comprised of its original poultry processing sites, acquired meat and poultry sites, and other non-meat acquisitions. There are variations in workplace culture, depending on factors including the pre-existing management culture and the strength of trade union organisation at acquired companies.

21. One key EHRC finding was the segregation of shifts by nationality. With regard to West Bromwich, this was one of the original sites owned by Ranjit Singh Boparan. At 2 Sisters’ West Bromwich site, a ‘divide and rule’ culture developed along lines of both nationality and faith. Unite believes that this has contributed to the poor working environment at this site. Often the union has been left with a virtually impossible task, to try and resolve these tensions and maintain a degree of cohesion at the same time as best representing its members, while the local and more senior management has been content to take a back seat.

22. For years Unite officers have tried to protect members and negotiate for better workplace relations. But the culture of fear has persisted, cascading down from the most senior executives, through middle and junior management, to supervisors and shift leaders.  The atmosphere has been so oppressive, it should be no surprise that workers feel they cannot question the breaches of working practices and basic hygiene that they have been under pressure to commit. Bullying and harassment, including sexual and physical threat, has been rife.

23. There are both male and female workers at the site, including migrant women workers. Harassment and abuse has been particularly reported by women workers.

24. It is not only workers who have been on the receiving end of the bullying culture. Unite officers are, regrettably, all too familiar with hostility and confrontation in the course of their work. But their treatment at the West Bromwich site has been unprecedented. Some of the union’s most experienced regional and national officers have been chased off site and physically threatened. Volumes have been maintained and retail orders met. But some of the most basic labour rights have not been upheld and the company has not guaranteed the safety of union officers while on site for legitimate reasons.

Auditing and enforcement

25. The alleged breaches of food hygiene at West Bromwich have taken place despite the presence of a wide range of regulations, duties, accreditation schemes, principles and guidance, supermarket auditing, and agencies tasked with upholding them. These include the Red Tractor scheme, the Food Standards Agency, the Meat Hygiene Service, local authorities’ functions including environmental health and trading standards, and supply chain bodies such as the OECD guidelines on multi-national companies and the Ethical Trading Initiative. 2 Sisters has ‘adopted’ the ETI Base Code and its retail customers included supermarkets that are fully signed up members of the ETI.

26. Concerns about the effectiveness of this regulatory framework are not new. Unite shares the disquiet of unions and wider civic society about regulatory capture of enforcement agencies, as has happened with the Food Standards Agency [4]. For example, the TUC condemned the appointment of an employer as a worker’s representative on the Health and Safety Executive [5]; Unite and other unions were excluded from a ‘streamlined’ Board of the then Gangmasters Licensing Authority.

27. With regard specifically to the FSA and its effectiveness in connection with the West Bromwich site, Unite’s experience is that 2 Sisters is usually made aware of imminent auditing visits by the FSA before they take place, which gives the company the opportunity to prepare for the audit. This means that the FSA is unlikely to be able to carry out its enforcement duties properly, as it has no opportunity to gather evidence of non-compliance and then pursue it in an effective way.

28. Added to this are the cuts to the FSA budget, severely limiting its capacity and effectiveness [6] as is occurring with local authorities and their enforcement bodies [7], and other agencies related to the food sector such as the HSE. Labour abuse agencies, such as the GLAA, have had resources increased but not in proportion to a vastly increased scope.

Recommendations

29. Unite is urgently pursuing a resolution to the problems at West Bromwich and remains optimistic that a change can be effected. We note that changes in manager have made a difference for the worse, but also for the better and a change for the better can be the case here. The West Bromwich site could and should have a better future – it has received millions of pounds of investment in recent years and has been the main supplier of high volumes of poultry products for most of the UK’s supermarkets. It is a major direct employer in the Sandwell area and will be sustaining thousands of jobs indirectly, up- and downstream.

30. To achieve a change in workplace culture to one that has the highest standards on labour rights and food hygiene we have to reverse the race to the bottom on workplace culture, including workers’ pay and conditions.

31. Unite has proposed a new Memorandum of Agreement. It calls for swift and comprehensive change at every level of the company to raise pay and conditions, working practices and procedures to the same level as other poultry businesses.

32. The Memorandum of Agreement calls for substantial investment in training on hygiene; health and safety; dignity at work and equalities.

33. In terms of recent developments, the company has now begun to work more closely with the union over training and safety standards.

34. Unite is making the following recommendations to be applied more generally:

-          Government policy:

-          The government’s policy of  ‘light touch’ and ‘risk-based’ regulation needs to be reversed, in the food industry as in other sectors

-          Enforcement:

-          Enforcement capacity needs to be increased, not only by a reversal in cuts that affect enforcement bodies at national and local government, but also by commitment in terms of political will

-          Unannounced visits by enforcements agencies including the FSA need to be increased

-          There must be no watering down or powers for enforcement agencies, and no move towards ‘shared powers’ between agencies

-          The regulatory capture of the FSA and other enforcement agencies needs to be halted with a re-assertion of the purpose of enforcement – to protect workers and consumers, on food safety and hygiene, labour rights, environmental protection, amongst others

-          Worker voice and union organisation:

-          Trade union organisation is central to better pay and conditions, including safety and food hygiene in this sector, as it is across industry. The labour rights of workers and the rights of their officers and elected representatives must be upheld and respected

-          The worker voice through their trade unions on enforcement bodies such as the GLAA and the HSE should be reinstated, with representatives from trade unions on their boards

-          Supermarkets:

-          The issues at 2 Sisters call into question the role of supermarkets and their auditing, particularly at a time when government enforcement agencies are taking a back seat in favour of self-policing by major retailers as with the FSA and campylobacter

-          Unite supports joint and several liability to ensure that lead firms bear responsibility for their supply chains

Conclusion

35. In Unite’s experience across thousands of workplaces, respect for workers’ rights goes hand in hand with high health and safety standards, and decent pay and conditions. We want to see a food chain that is free from abuse; a system that values labour rights, animal welfare, and the environment will be safer for consumers, better for workers, and ultimately less prone to crisis.

October 2017