Stuart and Mark Davies, Worcester Socialist Party
350 workers at Arrow XL have been taking strike action since October 2022 over pay.
The company’s bosses have offered its workers a pay rise of just 5%, and are now refusing to meet with their union, Unite.
The highly profitable delivery and warehousing company is part of Logistics Group Holdings Ltd, whose billionaire owners, also own the Telegraph newspaper, Yodel and Very.com.
Many of the workers are only paid the minimum wage, with others paid just above £9.50 an hour. The workers had been taking part in regular strike days around the country, but an all-out strike began from 9 December in Arrow XL’s headquarters in Wigan.
Despite not being prepared to pay its workers decent pay, the company’s highest-paid director was paid £539,000 in 2021, an 84% increase on the previous year!
In November, over 100 employees travelled to Liverpool’s Albert Dock to demonstrate outside Logistic Group’s head office. Many travelled from Arrow’s headquarters in Wigan, and from Worcester and Enfield. To try to remove the protest the managers called the police, who stood aside as the event continued.
A protest was arranged outside the prestigious Logistics UK Awards in central London, where sister-company Yodel was shortlisted for an award. A smaller event also took place outside the “Severn Arts Charity” in Worcester’s St John’s. One of the main managers in Worcester is involved in this charity, but was shamed for not paying a living wage to Arrow employees.
While supporting the workers on the picket line, Socialist Party members have been well received. One worker explained that he had previously “not been into politics”, but this changed as he looked both at this dispute and beyond, and thought about what future there is for his 20-year-old son and his son’s generation. He highlighted the need for “real change”, but that the current Tory and Labour offerings are much the same, and that an alternative is required. He said: “They have got to realise we are the power”.
