Top 10 Scrooge bosses of the year - Muller

This year throughout the festive period, UniteLive will highlight our top ten worst bosses of the year – employers so miserly and mean that they’d put Scrooge himself to shame.

Today we look at Muller, a German dairy giant which is treating its milk delivery drivers and shunters horrendously as it seeks to impose a rota to milk more from workers to boost their own already super-sized profits.

In contravention of an agreement signed with Unite earlier this year, Muller is trying to impose a five days on, two days off rota system. The changes would require all drivers to work at least one day every weekend.

Just as Scrooge himself at first denied his underpaid clerk Bob Cratchit time off to be with his family for Christmas, Muller’s imposed rota would destroy workers’ ability to spend time with their own families. And that’s not just over Christmas but throughout the year – you can’t get any more Scrooge than that!

And it gets even worse – the reason the company wants to force through the rota is to save money when they contract third party hauliers to deliver products. This is even despite already having made eye-watering profits of £16.5m in profit in 2020 with more forecast for 2021.

The Muller delivery drivers and shunters, Unite members, who are responsible for delivering milk products to supermarkets nationwide, have been taking strike action since August over the imposed rota, with their latest round of strikes taken in November. Members are now being re-balloted for further action.

Commenting on the dispute, Unite general secretary Sharon Graham said, “These rota changes, which Muller has imposed despite agreeing not to, will cause havoc with our members’ family lives.

“Muller already turns a substantial profit; this is simply a greedy attempt to milk even more by attacking the workers’ work-life balance.

“Muller signed an agreement – it needs to stick to it. Instead of relying on costly outsourcing firms, Muller would save money if it recruited extra drivers directly.”

Stay tuned for more Scrooge bosses tomorrow.

By UniteLive team