Taking the Biscuit
 |
| © London Intelligence, November 2014 |
Penguin.
Peel off the wrapper.
Digestives.
Dunk in your tea.
Rich
Tea.
Hobnobs.
Mini
Cheddars.
You might’ve munched many of these
biscuits, writes Paul Coleman.
Churned out from a factory first built in 1902
in Harlesden, north-west London.
Made by employees of United Biscuits - founded in 1948 - working across a 24-7 shift pattern.
United Biscuits once swallowed
McVitie’s, the biscuit and Jaffa Cakes
maker.
McVitie’s, a company that first produced
Digestives in 1892.
And then added chocolate to the
Digestives in 1925 – before introducing Jaffa Cakes to a grateful world in
1927.
But a £2 billion deal in autumn 2014
sees United Biscuits - and its McVitie’s brands - bought by Yildiz, a privately
owned global food group based in Turkey.
Rhys McCarthy, an official with trade
union UNITE, says assurances will be sought from the new owners about the
futures of United Biscuit’s 4,600 UK workers.
Yildiz chairman Murat Ülker says: “We’re
very excited to work with United Biscuits’ strong and experienced management
team to achieve our aim of building the world’s leading biscuits business.”
Assurances, though, are required
Especially by London workers worried
about their job security in London’s low wage real economy.
And, in a food industry where takeover
promises prove indigestibly hollow.
For instance, when US cheese slice group
Kraft took over famous UK chocolate maker Cadbury in 2010.
Kraft promised no compulsory factory
redundancies for two years. But 200 jobs were sliced a year later.
Voraciously
You can see why London workers worry.
Over the cost of rising food and energy.
And, about the way high train fares voraciously
gobble money constantly topped onto travel cards.
And, that’s not including worries over
soaring rents and property prices.
Sneezed
None of these anxieties are mitigated by
a tiny rise in wages above the official inflation rate of 1.2% in early
November – a blip seized on by politicians heralding ‘progress’ in their stat
economy but sneezed at by real people surviving in the real economy.
True, the London Living Wage – a rate set
by the Greater London Authority and currently paid voluntarily by about 1,000
firms – rose by 4% to £9.15 an hour.
(Outside London, the UK Living Wage
rises by 2.6% to £7.85 per hour).
Yet 5.28 million workers earn less than
the Living Wages.
And, the number of people on the
national minimum wage of £6.50 per hour continues to soar – especially in
catering, care homes, hotels, and retail.
With taxpayers topping up low-earnings
through benefits.
Daily
The minimum wage is now the norm.
No longer a floor for an unlucky few.
Wage stagnation and job insecurity grind
their way into people’s lives.
Devouring life chances.
Depositing only a bitter aftermath.
Of daily anxieties – reflected little in
daily newspapers.
Anxieties
Many people are working two and three
jobs just to make ends meet – whilst forlornly hoping to meet the end of these
anxieties.
Meanwhile, bonus greedy City bankers -
buoyed since 2009 by taxpayer bailouts and by Quantitative Easing - receive a November
slap on their wrists for crookedly fixing money markets.
Mealy-mouthed politicians do little or
nothing about this inequality.
Often, only Church leaders speak out.
“A healthy, active civil society is
reliant on people volunteering their time and enthusiasm for the good of
others,” says the Reverend Lucy Winkett, rector of St James’s Piccadilly.
“We risk losing that great British
tradition if our families are too troubled with tackling household expenditure.
Hard
working people should have enough to live, not simply survive.”
© Paul Coleman, London Intelligence, November 2014
