What a perverse act of defiance – two fingers up to government policy by a major company. Bidfood is one of the largest food distributors in the UK, with 26 depots supplying about 40,000 institutions and food service companies, including Manchester United, Subway and Five Guys. What’s more, it supplies NHS trusts, the army, prisons and schools and the royal household. Yet it chooses this moment to derecognise trade unions, abandoning a longstanding recognition of the GMB and Unite. This reflects the rumbling resistance to the government’s flagship working rights legislation that is now going through parliament.
The unions say that tearing up the recognition agreement came out of the blue: there had been no dispute at the company. Now the unions fear the company is doing it because it plans a P&O-style fire-and-rehire of its food delivery workers, reducing the terms of their contracts to pre-empt something that will be effectively banned when the new employment rights laws come into force.
Bidfood says that’s a false scare, but gives no coherent explanation of this provocative action. When I spoke to company representatives, they gave me their statement, which only says they want “to work with our teams directly through our employee engagement forums, which we believe represent a wider range of our employees’ views” and that “a number of employees” are “voicing concerns and frustrations over long delays in resolving issues” via the unions. A Bidfood GMB rep tells me that workers were offered a 33p an hour pay rise last year, but negotiated that up to 50p, so yes, a delay. Nationally, union bargaining power brings members 4.2% higher pay on average. This rep, like everyone, was blindsided by the unions’ ejection: “We’ve aways had good relations. Some managers are disgusted by this too.”
Is this part of an “ugly rush” to sack staff before the new measures come into place? That was the warning thundered by the bombastic chair of the Confederation of British Industry, Rupert Soames, on the BBC’s Today programme, in response to the increase in national insurance contributions and the minimum wage: “I think not only will they not employ, I think they will let people go. I think there could be quite an ugly rush before some of these things come into force.”
A vigorous pushback against the bill was always predictable. It bans exploitative zero-hours contracts, ends fire-and-rehire and improves basic rights to holiday and sickness pay, and gives protection from unfair dismissal from day one. There will still be a probation period. Are the CBI really demanding the right to unfair dismissal? Dismissal by due process is allowed.
Expect union membership to rise: anti-union measures caused it to fall from 13m in 1979 to 6.7m in 2021. That contributed to the fall in pay as a share of GDP; in 1975, it accounted for 71%, and last year it accounted for 59%. The radicalism of this bill is its intent to tilt power back from capital towards labour. Often overlooked is the bill’s obligation on employers to allow unions in to address their workforce, hoping to recruit from the most vulnerable workforces in social care, fast food outlets, warehouses and deliveries.
The threshold for holding recognition ballots will fall, and workers will be able to vote electronically. The Tories warn this means more strikes, yet their union-bashing approach led to more strikes in 2023 than in any year since the 1980s. Employers will no doubt try to deter staff from joining, so the TUC tells me: “That puts pressure on us to come with a very attractive retail offer.” Union membership brings not just better pay and safety conditions, with representation if disciplined or dismissed, but advantages such as free visa and benefits advice, free courses in English for Speakers of Other Languages (though this was restricted in 2021 when Gavin Williamson, the improbable education secretary, axed the union learning fund), and an array of free courses for upskilling.
Alongside the CBI’s admonitions about a “hole in the confidence and trust that business has in the government”, the British Chambers of Commerce also warns of dire consequences: “the warning lights on recruitment, employment and training are already flashing”. Others stir rumours that Labour will backtrack: the Financial Times both predicts it and calls for it, protesting this week that the banning of fire-and-rehire is “too tightly drawn, requiring companies to be almost insolvent before they can change contracts”. The government strongly resists this argument: imminent insolvency and resulting mass job losses will remain the only justification for a fire-and-rehire cut in pay and terms. It may make the government appear in a more reasonable light when confronted by the ever-combative Sharon Graham of Unite, who opposes the insolvency proviso and opposes the addition of the word “exploitative” to the ban on zero-hours contracts, which still allows some workers to choose variable hours. “Failure to end fire-and-rehire and zero-hours contracts once and for all will leave more holes than Swiss cheese that hostile employers will use,” she says.
In the face of an array of employers threatening job cuts, such as Lord Wolfson of Next (more than £1bn profit last year), the TUC tells me it has no fear of the government backtracking from the radicalism of the bill: “From our perspective, there are no red lights flashing. Employers made the same noise over introducing the minimum wage.” Darren Jones, treasury secretary, said last week there would be no retreat, echoed by Keir Starmer at PMQs.
“Make work pay” is Labour’s rubric for this act: growth depends on better pay, it says. Polls show overwhelming support for these working rights. People see the need for stronger protection of a workforce that has become more insecure and vulnerable. Bidfood’s dash to expel unions before the bill passes will act as a useful reminder.
Polly Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
