Zarah ChoudharyWorkers delivering food for Manchester United, Five Guys and Subway face a ‘P&O style fire and rehire’ threat, trade unions have warned.
Thousands of staff at Bidfood – a company which also delivers food for the army, prisons and schools across the UK – could now be sacked and reemployed on worse terms and conditions, after the firm cancelled the longstanding recognition deal with GMB and Unite.
The deal between unions and Bidfood goes back 30 years – but according to the unions it was ended this week with immediate effect, without the standard notice period.
GMB and Unite will now talk to members to discuss next steps, which will likely include a strike vote.
Nadine Houghton, national officer at GMB, said: “GMB, Unite and Bidfood have successfully worked together to improve workers’ pay, terms and conditions since at least the 1990s.
“Our members work hard delivering vital food supplies for the army, prisons and schools across the UK.
“They deserve the protections union recognition brings.
“Without us, bosses will be able to do what they want, ripping up their contracts and enforcing worse terms and conditions.
“Bidfood faces becoming P&O on the road and GMB members won’t stand for it.
“All options are open, including an industrial action vote.”
A spokesperson at Bidfood said: “We can confirm that after careful consideration, we have made the decision to withdraw our voluntary agreement to have a Collective Bargaining Unit (CBU) across our business from 17th January 2025.
“This was not a decision we made lightly, however we’ve found in recent years that the CBU is not reflective of the interests of the majority of our employees and is therefore not fully representative of those working within transport or our warehouse roles, with a number of employees voicing concerns and frustrations over long delays in resolving issues.
“Following the highly inflammatory and untrue claims made in the release that GMB has issued today, we want to make it clear that we are in no way threatening a ‘fire and rehire’ of our employees, nor are we planning to change their terms and conditions.
“It’s really disappointing to see GMB attempt to scaremonger in order to foster mistrust and doubt among our employees.
“This further cements our view that this is not the collaborative approach we aspired to have between ourselves and the trade unions.
“In order to best represent and support our warehouse and transport community, it’s important for us to work with our teams directly through our Employee Engagement Forums, which we believe represent a wider range of our employees’ views across all sites, and are a more agile, effective and collaborative way to listen, discuss and resolve matters that are important to our employees, in real time.
“We really value our people and pride ourselves on being a people business.
“We take the importance of listening to and supporting them incredibly seriously, and we value contributions and feedback from all of our employees.
“We remain committed to ensuring an open approach to discussing and tackling issues and wholeheartedly believe this is a positive step for our business and our people.”
