A giant rat landed on Albert Square in an attention-grabbing fire and rehire protest.
Four organisers of Unite the Union unveiled the inflatable rodent outside the Commercial Union Offices building on Friday morning to raise awareness of strike action at food manufacturer Oscar Mayer.
The building houses a partner of Legal & General, who have a stake in the debt management company that owns Oscar Mayer.
Organiser Laura Gleeson, 43, said: “It’s about saying, you’ve got the power here to make local management resolve this.”
And the rat? “Don’t rat out your workers.”
A strike has been ongoing at the Wrexham plant since September and 30 employees have already been sacked.
According to Unite, Oscar Mayer factory workers – who make lasagnes, cottage pies and other ready meals – are set to be £3,000 worse off.
New contracts will reduce their three paid breaks to two unpaid breaks and bank holiday pay will be axed.
Fire and rehire is a legal but controversial practice where employers terminate a contract with the intention of rehiring the same worker.
This loophole enables them to manoeuvre worker’s conditions without being accused of a contract breach.
Gleeson said: “It’s one thing having a conversation and trying to consult, and another saying ‘you haven’t got a job.’”
Foreign workers may be particularly vulnerable when faced with the intricacies of contract law in a second language.
Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said: “Corporate greed is driving this disgraceful and unnecessary attack on already low paid workers.
“It is behaviour that should have no place in our society.”
Oscar Mayer responded with the following statement:
“Operational changes implemented by the management of Oscar Mayer and significant capital injections by our investors have saved over 2,500 jobs.
“Recent changes to employee terms, which resulted in an average loss of £20 per week for impacted employees, were triggered by the loss of a significant contract representing 25% of business volume at the Wrexham facility.
“The alternative would have been a reduction in capacity, resulting in a large number of redundancies, impacting up to 500 employees.
“Without these changes, the reality is that all jobs at our Wrexham site would have been at risk.”
Pemberton Asset management manages a £17bn portfolio and last year paid out millions to its partners, one of which is Oscar Mayer.
The strike is set to continue into March.
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