Angry Johnnie Walker workers tell visiting Diageo CEO
Walsh: 'Have the bottle to face us'
7 November 2009
Angry Johnnie Walker workers have accused Diageo chief executive
Paul Walsh of not having the bottle to face his workers.
The Diageo CEO will visit the threatened Kilmarnock and Port
Dundas sites this Monday (November 9th), following the workers'
request to meet them face-to-face and explain why, under Diageo's
harsh restructuring plans, the plants must close. The workers,
members of Unite the union, wanted a chance to urge Paul Walsh not
to consign their plants, which have over a century and a half of
whisky-making history, to the dustbin.
However, the workers have now learned that Walsh is only
prepared to meet a small group of shop stewards, robbing the
majority of the workforce of the opportunity to tell him what they
think of Diageo's plans and to ask him to think again.
Ahead of the visit, Unite national officer for food and drink,
Jennie Formby, said: "Initially we were pleased that the workers'
pressure had succeeded in bringing Diageo CEO Paul Walsh to meet
with the workers but he clearly has not got the bottle to face the
workers who have helped make the company so successful and
contributed to his own personal fortune.
"This workforce is hugely proud of Johnnie Walker and of the
part it plays in Scotland's whisky industry. They are not
going to give their plants up without a fight, a message we hope Mr
Diageo will take back to his board.
"These workers know that, unless Diageo thinks again, the
Kilmarnock Johnnie Walker plant will close next year, that they and
their friends will be out of a job and their town will have to find
work for yet more people. So, while Mr Walsh will receive a
polite reception from the small group that will be allowed to meet
him, they will be looking for a lot more from him than warm
words. And our members are furious that he has robbed them of
the chance to speak to him face to face.
"This should have been Mr Walsh's opportunity to tell the
workforce that he has listened to and heard them, and that Diageo
will not press forward with these painful restructuring plans,
which will have dreadful consequences for these loyal workers and
Scotland's whisky industry. We urge him rethink his plans and
to seize that opportunity on Monday, or the workers will have no
other choice but to make him listen by voting for industrial
action."
The impact of the closure of the Kilmarnock Johnnie Walker plant
will be especially hard for the Ayrshire town as it sits at the
heart of the community, providing work and stability for
generations of local families. Its loss would devastate the
local community where good jobs are scare.
Unite has been pressing Diageo to think again on the closure
plans, which would see 700 jobs go in Kilmarnock, and cut 200 other
jobs at the company's other sites in Shieldhall and Port
Dundas. All three plants recently voted overwhelmingly to
ballot for industrial action to fight the closures and job cuts,
and to win a fairer deal for the workforce including reinstating
the opportunity to commute part of their redundancy pay into their
pensions to allow early retirement, a facility that was cynically
changed just three months before the announcement in
July.
Recently, the joint unions at Diageo submitted a package of
efficiency measures to the company, savings Unite says would have
handed millions to the company year on year and destroyed the
rationale for cutting jobs. Diageo rejected these savings,
prompting Unite to run a consultative ballot for industrial action
at the three sites under most immediate threat; Kilmarnock,
Shieldhall and Port Dundas. The overwhelming vote for action
at each plant means a full industrial action ballot will soon be
commenced by Unite.
Paul Walsh will visit the Johnnie Walker plant in Kilmarnock at
10 am on Monday, November 9th, and the Port Dundas plant
thereafter.
ENDS
For further information, please contact Jennie Formby on 07702
206 436, or the Unite press office (Pauline Doyle on 07976 832 861
or Karen Viquerat on 07768 931 316)
