Nestlé faces union legal action over women workers in HQ move row

The company is moving next Monday (October 1) from Croydon in south London to new purpose-built offices at Gatwick.

Nick Day, GMB organising officer, told FoodManufacture.co.uk that 17 GMB members employed as catering workers at the Croydon offices were the only workers on the site who had not been offered help with the additional travel costs, or who had not been offered a severance plan funded by Nestlé.

He said they were mainly low-paid predominantly women workers who were working parents with child care responsibilities. They were seeking an agreement to cover additional annual travel costs of £2,530 per year.

However, while they were all once employed by Nestlé, their contracts were passed to ISS when catering was out-sourced, and when the office is relocated the catering contract is being transferred to BaxterStorey.

Responsibility​

Day said the group of workers had filed a complaint against all three companies but none of them would take responsibility.

“Nestlé and the others are playing a game of passing the corporate parcel here,” ​said Day. “Nestlé has tried to wash its hand of what happens to the catering workers as if their decision to move offices and change contractor has nothing to do with them.​

“ISS says the Nestlé catering staff will be TUPE ​[Transfer of Undertakings Protection of Employment] transferred to BaxterStorey and become employees of that company from October 1. BaxterStorey has told the employees that if they do not fund the extra travel costs of £2,530 per year themselves they will be dismissed without redundancy pay.”​

A Nestlé UK spokeswoman told FoodManufacture.co.uk: “Nestlé moves to Gatwick on October 1 and can confirm our new catering contractor will be BaxterStorey. As this is a matter between ISS and BaxterStorey we are unable to comment further.” ​

Unsettling​

A BaxterStorey spokeswoman said: “We understand that this is an unsettling time for catering employees at Nestlé’s Croydon facility, not only because of the contractual transfer from the current foodservices provider to BaxterStorey but also because of the relocation to a new Nestlé site.​

“This is a complex situation as we are still in contractual negotiations with Nestlé and awaiting further instructions prior to the contract commencement.”​

Day added: “Nestlé failed to make any allowance for the extra costs faced by the catering staff when they transferred the contract. They have to make enough funds available to enable our members to continue to cater for their 800 staff.”​

He added that a complaint could not be lodged with an employment tribunal until after the move, but he hoped the matter could be resolved before then.

If not, however, GMB would be making a claim against Nestlé UK for discrimination, unfair selection and unfair dismissal.