T&G recognition battle bears fruit

The T&G general union has reached a recognition agreement for strawberry pickers, most of whom are migrants, following a campaign in which supermarket chains Sainsbury and Tesco helped put pressure on their employer.

The union took up the cause of the pickers, who work for the strawberry grower S&A Davies, after hearing about poor treatment and abuse of its seasonal workers (see Workplace Report, November 2006). It organised a demonstration by more than 500 workers outside S&A's Hereford farm and tried to sort out the problems with the employer.

When this failed, the T&G and the workers began to raise the issues in the media and with S&A customers, demanding an end to abuses and the installation of a union recognition agreement to prevent a repetition of them.

Finally, under pressure from its biggest customers, S&A has agreed to give T&G access to the workers and to allow the election of reps with time off for union duties. A disciplinary and grievance procedure is being drawn up, and by April there will be full collective bargaining on pay and conditions.

T&G acting senior organiser Margaret Armstrong said: "This agreement will be the first of its kind in agriculture and it really does demonstrate that there are no no-go areas for our union."

The union says it met its 2006 goal of recruiting 10,000 new members, and is doubling its target for 2007 by aiming for another 20,000.