This blog is the address from Ian Mearns, MP for Gateshead to the Annual Conference of the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union 12th June 2023. He updated conference on the main debates and developments from the BFAWU Parliamentary Group during the last year.

Photo Credit: TUC Northwest

I'd like to start by sending support and solidarity from everyone in the Bakers Union Parliamentary Group to the members who've recently been on strike at Allied Bakeries in Bootle.

My colleagues Ian Byrne, Kim Johnson, Mick Whitley, and Peter Dowd have joined the picket lines - and this week we tabled Early Day Motion 1276 on the House of Commons order paper to support the Bakers Union members fighting for a fair deal on pay.

Rising cost of living hits food workers hard

Workers in the food sector and across the economy earn wages hugely out of step with the soaring cost of living. It's unacceptable that a parent company can post huge profits, yet some workers earn as little as £8 an hour after deductions for shift and overtime payments.

Rocketing energy bills, rising rents and mortgages, and record increases in food prices - peaking at 19.2% - but with even bigger rises for the essentials like milk, bread, cheese, and eggs, hit the lowest earners hardest. The cost of food represents a much bigger proportion of the weekly budgets of people on low incomes - often leaving them with the choice of eating or heating.

We know that people have had enough and are ready to fight back. A number of MPs raised these shocking statistics in the "Foodworkers on the Breadline" report - which showed that 17.5% of food workers were forced to use food banks. There's something wrong with a society where the people who produce the food we eat, can't afford to eat.

Tories ignore food workers

It’s no surprise to learn that this Tory government has ignored the voice of the food workers, although they were quick to rely on key workers in food manufacturing and retail during the COVID pandemic.

We revealed how they held a national “Farm to Fork” food summit in Downing Street without inviting any of the TUC unions that organise workers in the food system. How the hell do they think food gets to our forks without the labour of people who work in the industry?

The truth is, this Government has done nothing to help people with the increasing cost of food. They realised they had to cap the rise of energy bills but they should have done more. If they can intervene in prices in the energy sector, why not the food sector?

Earlier this year the Bakers Group raised the issue of profiteering by the big supermarkets, who continue to post huge profits and share dividends whilst both their suppliers and customers suffer.

Universal School Meals

Like the Bakers Union, we want to see universal free school meals, and MP colleagues including Zarah Sultana and Kim Johnson have campaigned for this at primary level, with the NEU and the Daily Mirror. No child should face going to school hungry.

The National Food Strategy led by former government' advisor Henry Dimbleby recommended extending the provision of free school meals to all households entitled to Universal Credit. The Government wouldn't even go this far, so Dimbleby quit his post, attacking the government for it's "insane" lack of strategy and reliance on the free market .

Right to Food

We backed the campaign led by Ian Byrne MP for the government to introduce a legal Right to Food, to prevent future governments from introducing policies like benefit sanctions that undermine people's food security.

We've also supported the Bakers Union in setting up the Food and Work Network - and heard from Professor Alex Colas from Birkbeck College about how FAWN links union organisers, academics, and community activists to understand why our food system is so broken and how to fix it.

Beth Winter spoke at the FAWN workshop in Cardiff, and Olivia Blake came to the most recent one in Sheffield. When the network puts together its research findings and policy demands we'll be able to make sure it gets picked up in Parliament.

Poor treatment of food workers

Asset-stripping businesses and loading them with debt is part of the business model of private equity firms, and we're all getting ripped off.

We are looking at what can be done to protect workers from situations like the one that hit Orchard House Foods near my constituency. There, the workers were strung along in a redundancy process, told they'd get the pay they were owed before Christmas, but were left unpaid as the company was made insolvent. Yet the owners, a venture capitalist firm called Elaghmore, boasted of a £90m investment fund. I know BFAWU members had a similar experience at Dawnfresh Foods, owned by one of the richest men in Scotland.

The union raised this with Justin Madders from the Shadow Business team and his written Parliamentary Questions showed that the taxpayer paid out nearly £300 million in two years - for nearly 70,000 people made redundant - when Directors often walked away with their riches intact.

Reactionary legislation

Rather than defending working people, this government has moved in the opposite direction undermining rights in the workplace; the right to protest, and attacking trade union rights.

The Strikes (Minimum Service Levels) Bill is utterly outrageous. It means in certain sectors, employers can serve a "work notice" on specific individuals to require them to work, and it becomes the union's responsibility to ensure that all "reasonable steps" have been taken to ensure they cross their own picket lines! If people don't comply the whole dispute can be rendered illegal, leaving strikers with no protection from being sacked and the unions facing potential bankruptcy.

Food workers aren't included at this stage, but once the precedent is set it’s likely they will look to widen the scope to make sure there's no disruption to food supply chains.

There are many more examples of reactionary Tory legislation - like the Illegal Migration Bill, attacking basic human rights and demonising desperate people seeking safety, but I've only been given 10 minutes!

Fighting in your corner

I'm happy to answer any questions but rest assured, the members of the Bakers Union group in Parliament are fighting your corner and there are still many MPs around who are proud to support trade unionists on a picket line.

Ian Mearns: “Fighting the Corner for Food Workers”