An 11-day strike beginning on May 14 at the Hovis bakery plant in Belfast, Northern Ireland, finally ended this week after staff agreed to a new salary offer.
Workers had been protesting about the fact that members of the Hovis workforce in Northern Ireland were paid ten per cent less than their counterparts in Great Britain.
According to a report by specialist bread producer Speciality Breads, Northern Irish shoppers had begun to see “noticeable bread shortages” in local corner shops and supermarkets.
As part of the terms that ended the strike, Hovis workers in Belfast agreed to an eight per cent pay rise over two years, with the first of those increases backdated to January 2021.
The agreement came at the third time of asking for the bread producer, after workers rejected two other increased pay offers.
A spokesperson for Hovis said: “This pay dispute has caused significant disruption to our customers and end-consumers which is deeply disappointing, but we are pleased that our Belfast team can now get back to work.
“We have agreed with the unions for the Labour Relations Agency to conduct a review into ways of working between Hovis and the unions at the Belfast site.”
The Unite union that represents the staff affected hailed the securing of new salary terms as a “huge victory”.
Unite regional officer, Sam McKeever, commented: “This strike should never have had to occur; it reflected a total failure on the part of a management who repeatedly underestimated their own workforce.
“As a result of this entirely avoidable strike action, not a single loaf of bread was baked in 12 days. Supermarket and retailer shelves have been left bare of Hovis bread.”
According to Hovis, the Belfast site provides 35 per cent of all bread sold in Northern Ireland.
