Licensees' strike ballot "a disgrace", says pubco rep

The GMB union's approach to 22,000 pub tenants over the issue of industrial action has been labelled a "disgrace" by a spokesman for one of the UK's largest pub groups.

The spokesman, who requested anonymity, said the idea of balloting licensees who were not already members of the GMB on 'strike' action rendered the action "invalid".

"You would have thought that the unions would have learnt something from the BA strike ballot, but apparently not," he said, referring to the recent High Court case with threw out a strike ballot by staff at the airline when it became clear some of those polled had already left the company.

"Trying to ballot publicans who are not even union members is a disgrace and makes the whole process completely invalid," the spokesman added.

The GMB said it was going to canvass the 22,000 tied licensees who were not already members of the union to see whether they would support action taken against their landlords which would include buying out of the beer tie.

The union said it was clear from the recent Office of Fair Trading investigation into the pub sector that pubcos overcharged the average tied licensee by around £12,000 a year.

It said it hoped to ballot pubs on what it called industrial action by the end of January next year.

The GMB already claims to have 3,000 members who are tied licensees.

It believes that those licensees taking action such as deliberately buying out of their tie agreements and so risking eviction from their pubs will have protection under law.