2 Sisters Food Group will “not cut pizza site jobs before January”

2 Sisters Food Group will not cut jobs at a UK pizza plant facing the end of an own-label contract before the agreement expires in January, the Unite union has said.

Talks between 2 Sisters and staff, which started on August 12, over the future of jobs at the site in Nottingham are set to last 45 days. The plant currently employs 1,150 workers.

Unite said that the two sides met on Friday, August 19, claiming that 2 Sisters had told the union it would not make any redundancies before the end of the deal to supply Tesco with own-label chilled pizzas.

“We now have a clearer picture of the company’s thinking”, Andy Shaw, Unite regional officer, said, according to the local press. “We now have breathing space to consider our approach to voluntary redundancies and the criteria that may be used in any redundancy program before we meet management again on September 20. The bottom line is that Unite is committed to avoiding compulsory job losses and we will be actively exploring avenues, such as redeployment and voluntary redundancy.”

Unite claims that up to 325 production staff could see their jobs cut. Speaking to just-food.com on Wednesday, 2 Sisters said it was too early to discuss what impact the loss of the contract would have on staff numbers at the site. The company has not responded to a request for comment on Unite’s statement at the time of writing.

Shaw added: “One thorny area, which we will be contesting, is that we believe that an enhanced redundancy package is in place with the pizza factory. Although the company says that it intends only to pay the statutory minimum, which we consider to be totally unacceptable.”