Strikers in race dispute are sacked

Staff at a Black Country food factory who went on a wildcat strike have been sacked.

A total of 54 workers at Smethwick chicken factory 2 Sisters were suspended at the start of September after walking out.

They claimed a shop steward was racially abused and then punished for complaining.

The company has refuted the allegations and said it had 30 different nationalities working there.

And it has denied claims by a trade union that investigations were not held.

Unite, the union, has said the workers, who are all Asian, have now been written to and told they are out of work.

The jobs at the factory, which employs 500, are being filled by temps. Unite spokesman Joe Clarke said: "They have all been dismissed without any investigation, which is disgraceful.

"The workers are now saying they want to protest outside the supermarkets that are supplied by 2 Sisters."

But 2 Sisters public relations executive Peter King said: "The staff were dismissed for unconstitutional industrial action.

"We take all allegations of racism very seriously and these claims are unjustified.

"The 54 employees were dismissed following disciplinary action and were notified that they would be dismissed.

"This was very much regrettable from the perspective of 2 Sisters. We have procedures in place that must be adhered to."

He added the company had created more than 100 jobs in the Birmingham area in recent years.

Police were called during the strike when the staff held a sit-in in the factory canteen in Bevan Way, on the Alpha Business Park.

The firm immediately suspended striking workers.

In a previous statement, 2 Sisters said: "A total of 55 employees were suspended a fortnight ago due to unofficial industrial action."

The company which has its head office in Dial Lane, West Bromwich, supplies poultry products to some of the country's leading retailers, including Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Sainsbury's.Unite claimed the protests were sparked by the company's slow response to a racist incident involving a security guard employed by a third-party contractor.

It was claimed a senior shop steward was suspended after he went to complain to management during work time.

The company has called those claims "grossly misleading and inaccurate".

2 Sisters and Unite spent 10 days in talks trying to make a deal on letting the suspended staff go back to work.

Mr Clarke added that staff had been meeting at the union's Birmingham headquarters yesterday. He said they were proposing to protest outside branches of Tesco and Marks & Spencer and would make their decision on that this week.