Unite secures compensation and reinstatement of fired workers
 
Workers at Wrexham’s Oscar Mayer ready meal factory are celebrating today after concluding their long-running industrial dispute with the company, marked by the signing of a statutory recognition agreement. This follows an earlier trade dispute agreement that secured the reinstatement of 26 dismissed workers and improvements to holiday compensation.
 
In excess of 500 Unite members at the plant took over 200 days of strike action between September 2024 and April 2025 in a fight for their colleagues’ jobs and over terms and conditions of employment. The company attempted to slash pay by up to £3,000 a year by firing and rehiring them on inferior contracts.
 
The workers have now secured an agreement that not only reinstates the dismissed workers but also compensates workers for the loss of paid breaks, gets members an extra day's holiday if they work bank holidays, allows them to carry over accrued holidays to 2026 and for the first time puts in place a formal recognition agreement between Oscar Meyer and Unite.
 
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “This is a tremendous victory by low paid workers who were prepared to stand up to their employer and fight back against pay cuts while defending fellow workers.
 
“This victory shows how Unite uses every possible avenue to exposes corporate greed and deliver for its members. There is power in a union.”
 
The workers initially began four weeks of strikes in September 2024 over the company’s plans to fire and rehire them to reduce wages by up to £3,000 a year. The workers, many of whom speak English as a second language, were being threatened with dismissal without compensation if they refused to agree to the detrimental terms by signing new contracts.  Alarmingly, some members were dismissed as they had not fully understood the notice period deadlines to accept the changes.
 
Unite members on the picket line were backed by a strikes plus campaign, which took the dispute to Oscar Mayer’s owners, the investment firm Pemberton Asset Management. Unite exposed Oscar Mayer’s behaviour to Pemberton's investor clients, including local authority pension funds in the UK and as far afield as Miami which piled pressure onto the company. 
 
Unite regional officer Jono Davies added: “I'm pleased Unite now has formal recognition with Oscar Mayer, focused on representing our members’ best interests and enhancing their terms and conditions. This recognition agreement marks a significant milestone—one that many of our members at Oscar Mayer have long awaited."
 
Unite's long-running campaign fighting this behaviour saw strikes for eight months. These were suspended in April to allow talks to take place and an agreement was then reached.
 
-ENDS-