Pub Tenants

PUB TENANTS FACING TOUGH TIMES

If you are a tenant of Punch, Enterprise or another major pub operating company, this will be of interest to you. GMB is one of the largest trade unions in the UK with over 610,000 members in all sectors of the economy. The union’s role is to improve working conditions for members through campaigning and negotiation.

Some GMB members are pub tenants with the major pub operating companies. They have sought the assistance of the union to secure a better deal from their landlords: lower rents and keener wholesale prices.  GMB has concluded that the best way of helping is to highlight the anticompetitive actions of some pub companies to the government and establish a system of negotiations across the industry that will make sure each tenant can make a decent living. Only pub tenants can achieve this, working together through a trade union.

Pub tenants joining GMB would not be breaking new ground. Many thousands of self employed people in the hospitality and entertainment industries are already active trade union members. For decades GMB has been involved in campaigning and negotiating pay and conditions for bar managers/tenants in members clubs under the CORCA agreement with the club owners.

OUR CAMPAIGN
We recently told government ministers that an unintended consequence of the Beer Order legislation in the 1990s to loosen the tie between breweries and pubs to free up the market for the benefit of consumers has been the growth in ‘Pubcos’ who are operating in an anti –competitive manner.  It is the impact of the higher charges for drinks that is killing pubs and
driving them out of business. ‘Pubcos’ are blaming everyone else for the problem and not looking at the damage they have caused through their own greed.  GMB are calling on the government and MPs to revisit this legislation.

OUR AIM – LOWER RENTS AND LOWER WHOLESALE PRICES
Our aim is to break up these companies to enable pub landlords to buy their beer from breweries and wholesalers at real and competitive prices. Pubs cannot survive being made to be cash cows to pay off the debts of the property companies and brewers. They do not have the interests of pubs and consumers at heart. 

We can only achieve this goal together if enough pub tenants stand up to be counted, join the union and get involved. We will organise collective legal challenges to the pub companies, lobby government ministers and represent individual members in disputes with their pub companies.

Pub Tenant Application Form.pdf

Sheffield Rebels website - http://www.sheffieldrebels.co.uk

3rd August 2009

GMB Legal Package

A legal package will shortly be available specific to publicans who are existing GMB members (membership to be verified by the local GMB Officer) consisting of 1 hour’s free consultation followed by optional representation from specialist lawyers for a flat fee of £350+VAT. Until details are finalised our regional solicitors Thompsons can provide general advice on leases and/or licensing issues. For further details please contact Trevor Finch at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or telephone 01246 234383.

10th August 2009

OFT Asks Publicans To Get In Touch Regarding Beer Tie

The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is accepting submissions from individual licensees as well as stakeholders for its new investigation into pubcos.

The OFT is currently examining pubcos and the tie following the “super complaint” submitted last month by the Campaign for Real Ale. The OFT has 90 days to study Camra’s complaint — which criticised pubcos around areas such as rent setting and beer prices for tenants — and then decide what action to take.

A letter, seen by the trade publication Morning Advertiser, from the OFT to a licensee who enquired about the probe said: “The OFT is currently considering the issues raised in the super-complaint, in order to establish whether any feature, or combination of features, in a relevant market is or appears to be significantly harming the interests of consumers. The OFT will publish a response within 90 days.

“The OFT would like to hear from all interested parties in this market. If you therefore wish to submit evidence in relation to the issues raised in Camra’s super complaint, please send an email outlining your evidence by 17 August 2009, to the following address: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).”

A spokesman for anti-pubco group Fair Pint said it has been approached by the OFT as a stakeholder to submit information for the super complaint and to meet the authority’s market investigations team.

There are only 11 days (from today 06 August 2009) to get information to the OFT, so you must act quickly.
It is also important to follow up with a written submission, the more information the OFT has the more likely that the OFT will act. The address for written submissions is

Evidence For The OFT Enquiry Into CAMRA “Super Complaint”
Enquiries and Reporting Centre
Office of Fair Trading
Fleetbank House
2-6 Salisbury Square
London
EC4Y 8JX