Management refusal to offer any pay increase results in revulsion across workforce

Unite to ballot more than 3,000 workers across Northern Ireland

June 3rd: Unite Regional Officer with responsibility for Moy Park, Sean McKeever, has confirmed that his union will be proceeding to ballot its membership on industrial action following the refusal of management to address the issue of poverty pay.

“Marfrig, the Brazilian company which owns Moy Park, boasts that profits from its Northern Ireland operations were £34 million in the last reported accounting period. Yet despite this profitability and the huge bonuses enjoyed by senior management, workers at the company’s factories across Northern Ireland continue to subsist on poverty wages.

“Our members work long-hours in a demanding and difficult working environment yet they are expected to live on pay just marginally higher than the minimum wage.

“Coming on the back of years of inadequate pay increments, Unite has sought a significant increase to wages but in response management has point-blank refused to countenance any pay increase whatsoever. We now have no alternative but to ballot our members across all factories on all-out industrial action to demand fair pay”, Mr McKeever concluded.