GMB embarks on tour to meet disgruntled tied pub lessees
The GMB union is to start touring the country in a bid to meet as many lessees of tied pubs as possible before it ballots on potential industrial action.
GMB national officer Paul Maloney told Caterer that meetings would start tomorrow in London, with dates also planned for Birmingham, Manchester, and several towns and cities in Scotland.
The union has already held three meetings in the South, which Maloney claimed 300 publicans have attended, but the programme was interrupted by the freezing weather.
Maloney said: "We've been inundated with requests to have group meetings but these have been delayed by the weather. We intend to use the month of January and now the early part of February to get out and meet as many publicans as we possibly can to ensure that they understand what the issues are - bear in mind that a lot of these people are not used to this sort of action, so we want to be sure that they know what they are doing."
Ballots for action are now expected to be sent out by the end of the second week of February.
The GMB claimed that the average tied pub is overcharged by around £12,000 a year for beer supplied by its landlord.
Following the failure of the Campaign for Real Ale to persuade the Office of Fair Trading to rule that the beer tie was anti-competitive last year, the GMB said "direct action" was the only answer to secure negotiations with the pubcos.
A ‘yes' vote in the nationwide official ballot to seek a mandate for official industrial action could result in lessees switching off the flow monitoring system Brulines off, as well as potentially buying beer ‘off tie'.
GMB publicans website >>
GMB union launches ballot on direct action over beer tie >>
GMB to ballot publicans over beer-tie action >>
Beer tie row rumbles on >> By Neil Gerrard
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