By Julian Whittle

Last updated at 14:16, Friday, 15 June 2012

Staff at Cavaghan & Gray in Carlisle in Carlisle are being balloted on proposals to change their terms and conditions.

It is understood that 2 Sisters Food Group, which owns the ready-meals plant, is asking workers to accept new overtime rates, sick pay arrangements, redundancy terms and changes to bank holiday working.

The trades union Usdaw is conducting the ballot, which closes on June 24.

It declined to comment ahead of the result.

But the wife of one of the affected workers told the The Cumberland News that the company was threatening to dismiss and re-engage staff on the new terms if they refused to accept the changes.

She said: “This, according to them, is legal. My husband could lose his job and not be given proper redundancy.

“How can these bosses get away with it?”

This is the second time workers have been balloted on the changes.

They rejected the previous proposal.

A spokeswoman for 2 Sisters said the company had to remain competitive.

She said: “We operate in a highly-competitive environment and, as a major supplier to all of the UK’s leading retailers, we continually need to ensure that we deliver the highest quality at the lowest cost.

“A number of sites in the food industry have closed in recent years and we need to ensure that our sites can remain viable into the future.

“It is absolutely essential that, for the group to prosper and grow over the coming years, we ensure our costs are sustainable into the future.”

2 Sisters is owned by the poultry magnate Ranjit Boparan.

It bought Cavaghan & Gray from Northern Foods in a £342m deal, which went through last May.

The company announced last month that 17 jobs would go at Carlisle following a restructure of back office roles.

It said that it hoped to redeploy the majority of those affected to other work on the site, although a small number would be made redundant.

First published at 14:11, Friday, 15 June 2012
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk