Morrisons customers could face food shortages as nearly 500 Eddie Stobart drivers are being balloted over strike action in a dispute that has already reached three distribution depots. The drivers supply supermarkets from sites in Wakefield, Stockton-on-Tees and Northwich in Cheshire, and the ballot is open until 4 June.
The dispute centres on the company’s use of agency workers hired on insecure contracts and significantly diminished terms and conditions. Unite said around 40% of drivers in Stockton and Northwich were now agency workers, a change the union says is driving down pay and standards across the network.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said Eddie Stobart’s attempts to undermine drivers’ pay and conditions, creating a race to the bottom on employment standards, was appalling. She said the union would not allow what she called disgraceful union-busting and said the workers had Unite’s absolute backing.
The company is owned by Culina Group, which said it remained committed to finding a sustainable solution. A Culina Group spokesperson said it was involved in ongoing constructive consultations with Unite about the best way to deliver a long-term approach to driver recruitment and retention amid the present national driver shortage, and said it would continue to engage with all parties through the previously agreed processes.
Morrisons said deliveries continue as normal and encouraged both sides to engage constructively to find a solution. But Unite’s national officer Neil Howells warned the supermarket would be extremely angry if it ended up facing empty shelves because Eddie Stobart was union-busting, and said there was still time to avoid strikes if the company reached a fair agreement with Unite.
The immediate threat is not theoretical: the ballot runs while supermarkets are still being supplied, but the warning of shortages hangs over a key part of Morrisons’ distribution chain. Unite says the issue is the replacement of unionised workers with people on insecure contracts and reduced terms, and the coming days will show whether the two sides can settle before the vote closes on 4 June.
