300 packers, pickers and drivers are due to go on strike for 24 hours on 23 September and 26 September, after 86% of Menzies’ Unite members voted in favour of a strike in June. There are around 400 Unite members on Menzies’ payroll.
The strike on 23 September will commence at 11pm and on 26 September at 7pm.
Menzies Unite staff have been balloted twice since a new pay offer of £7.25 an hour was imposed in April, just five pence above the national living wage. This is combined with the removal of double time and time off in lieu for seven of the eight bank holidays, which was first implemented on the May bank holiday.
This is the first time in its history Menzies staff have chosen to strike.
Unite national officer for the graphical, paper and media sector Ian Tonks said: “This is unfortunate but necessary to bring Menzies around the table with a decent offer, rather than what they have been doing for the past few months.
“First of all they withdrew the annualised hours scheme and the company thought that the reason people rejected the pay offer was that. We re-balloted the workforce and they said ‘No, it’s because of the pay and the bank holidays’."
Having negotiated for three months since strike action was voted for at the end of June, Menzies has not come up with a new pay offer that has been accepted by workers.
Tonks said that its latest offer of a wage increase of 3.85% is offset by the change in bank holiday working rules.
“The staff would be paying for their own pay rise every time they work three or more bank holidays in the year, and they all work bank holidays. This is paper distribution after all, you wake up on Monday morning and want the paper delivered through your door,” he added.
Newspaper publishers are unsure of how the strikes will effect them at this point.
Johnston Press marketing operations and content sales director Richard Thompson said: "Menzies Distribution have kept us informed of developments and we are working closely with them to ensure there will be no disruption to our customers."
Trinity Mirror and Guardian News & Media declined to comment on how their distribution departments will be handling the strike.
The majority of those striking are based in either Scotland or the South East. Menzies has its headquarters in Edinburgh.
Its main distribution centres in England are in Ashford, Aylesford, Greenwich, Norwich, Portsmouth and Weybridge. Along with the Edinburgh head office, in Scotland, they are in Dundee, Dunfermline, Glasgow, Inverness, Irvine and Paisley.
In 2015, Menzies turned over just less than £2bn.
