Unite maintains pressure on Morrisons in pay dispute

Unite and its members who are employees at Morrisons continued their strike action through the week and were outside the supermarket again on Thursday.

The five days of strikes are in protest against a 20p an hour pay rise offer that was rejected by 100% of the union’s members at the store, although not all employees within the supermarket are members of Unite.

The supermarket remains open but there were signs yesterday suggesting the strike action was having an impact.

On Thursday morning, the butcher’s counter was closed, with no meat or staff in the area, while the nearby fish counter had a small amount of product.

The deli and cheese counter were closed and a sign, which had been there on Wednesday too, stated: “We have had to close this department today due to unforeseen circumstances. We will reopen as soon as possible.”

The hot food counter also had less product than usual.

The café is also affected with a sign placed stating, “Reducing café opening 9am to 6pm. To ensure that our colleagues can keep our shelves stocked, we will be temporarily reducing our Customer Café opening to 9am to 6pm.”

The café’s usual opening hours are 8am to 7pm.

Christian Duo from Unite told the Chronicle that Morrisons had not responded to their communications this week when they issued notices extending the strike period, which was initially for 24 hours.

Workers are striking for parity with the UK where their counterparts earn nearly two pounds an hour more than they do in Gibraltar.

Last week, Morrisons said it would implement the 2.4% pay increase despite Unite’s opposition.

“We will not be making any further comments on the record at the moment,” a spokesperson said on Thursday night.