Strike Ballot at Kilmarnock

Trade Union UNITE Press Release

Ballot begins as angry Diageo workers hit back against slurs

Angry workers at Diageo sites in Kilmarnock, Port Dundas and Shieldhall move closer to industrial action to defend their jobs and plants as a consultative ballot opens tomorrow (Tuesday).

The ballot begins at the Diageo plants facing heaviest job losses with the workforce furious at insinuations made recently that greed is what is motivating the workers' vigorous fight to save jobs. Last year, Diageo made over £2 billion in profit - up 10 per cent on the previous year - and awarded their CEO Paul Walsh a pay packet of £3.5 million. Walsh, who has shares worth more than £6 million, will also benefit from the fact that shareholder dividends are up by 5 per cent. Earlier this year, the workers accepted pay freezes and agreed to other cost saving measures, having been promised this would protect jobs for the future.

Yet the company is now threatening to punish workers refusing to accept its savage restructuring plans, which would see 900 workers thrown on the dole, close the historic home of Johnnie Walker in Kilmarnock and shut the Port Dundas distillery in Glasgow, by scything redundancy pay down to the state basic. This would see workers, many of whom have given decades of loyal service to the company, lose out on thousands of pounds in their time of greatest need.

Jennie Formby, Unite national officer for the drink sector, attacked Diageo's threats: "Here we have a mega-profitable, global giant trying to use its might and muscle to frighten Scottish workers into meek acceptance of savage cuts and plans which would ruin their communities.

"Diageo are showing their true colours now. Threatening to impose poverty at a time when people are frightened about their jobs and futures is deeply cynical, and coming from a company which has billions of pounds worth of pure profit sitting in the bank, nothing short of heartless.

"And we will absolutely not stand by while nasty insinuations are made in the press that workers are being greedy in seeking a fair redundancy deal from a company that makes millionaires out of senior executives yet threatens to slash redundancy packages when their workers ask for a fair deal.

"Our members are determined to fight to save their jobs and are not prepared to be thrown on the dole simply to further boost Diageo's already huge profits. They will show the strength of their anger when they vote on industrial action but we urge the company to avoid needless conflict by reopening dialogue with the workers and their unions on a fairer way forward on restructuring."

Unite recently proposed a plan which could save Diageo over £80 million and avoid the £36 million cost of shutting the Kilmarnock plant, the last major private sector employer in that community.

The union is also pressing for fair packages for those workers who opt for voluntary redundancies. It wants the company to give packages of at least equal value to previous closures, and to reverse the decision, imposed just three months before Diageo announced its closure plans, for the ability for people to commute a portion of their redundancy pay into their pension to allow early retirement.

The consultative ballot of the workers at the Kilmarnock, Port Dundas and Shieldhall plants opens on Tuesday, October 20th, and will close on Friday, October 30th.