Strike at Diageo’s distilleries in Scotland called off at last minute

Scotland | Strike action has been suspended at Diageo’s operations after management and unions struck a pay deal. Workers had been determined to walk out at dozens of sites on 17 September 2019, following the unions’ rejection of a “final” pay hike offer of 2.8 percent on 16 September.

The BBC reports that a deal was struck shortly before the first of a wave of strikes was due to start on the following day. The two unions, Unite and GMB, which represent nearly half of Diageo’s total workforce of 3,000 in Scotland, will now consult their members on the new offer.

According to the BBC, the offer is a two-year deal with a 3 percent pay rise this year and an increase in pay next year, which will be in line with the retail price index (RPI) rate as it stands in June 2020.

After months of fruitless talks, the unions had announced industrial action on 23 August. The “rolling programme” of 24-hour strikes was to run from 17 September until 27 September. It would have hit all of Diageo’s bottling, maturation and distillery plants in Scotland. Diageo operates dozens of sites north of the border, including distilleries in Perthshire, Fife, Aberdeenshire, the Isle of Skye, the Black Isle and Argyll and Bute.

Diageo had argued that it could not afford to match last year’s 3.2 percent pay award.

This was countered by the unions, saying that the company in its last financial year (ended 30 June 2019) had made pre-tax profits of GBP 4.2 billion (USD 5.1 billion), a share buyback programme worth GBP 4.5 billion (USD 5.5 billion) and a 30 percent pay increase for CEO Ivan Menezes, taking his total pay to GBP 11.7 million (USD 14.2 million).