UNDERPAID food workers should shame bosses who are forcing them into poverty, Bakers, Food & Allied Workers’ Union (BFAWU) general secretary Sarah Woolley stressed today.

In her closing address to the union’s annual conference in Staffordshire, its first woman leader issued a passionate rallying cry to delegates after BFAWU research showed nearly a fifth of its 15,000 members cannot afford the products they are producing. 

Speaking at Yarnfield Park conference centre in Stone, Ms Woolley said: “No food worker, nobody in our union, should be in a position where they can’t afford to eat, where they’re living in blankets and not buying food just to survive.”

The ex-Greggs worker urged delegates to take the union’s latest report “back to your employers and shame them.”

She also hailed her “amazing, inspirational members for showing that solidarity is more than words, it’s actions.”

BFAWU national president Ian Hodson encouraged the union to “stand up and fight” as he hailed the example of Allied Bakeries workers at a factory in Bootle, Merseyside, who launched walkouts against plummeting take-home pay last month.

He warned Tory ministers who “do not value our lives or contributions that we will no longer accept what they want to do to us,” before he turned his fire on Sir Keir Starmer’s increasingly right-wing Labour Party.

The union, which helped to create the party in 1900 and was a key ally of Sir Keir’s left-wing predecessor Jeremy Corbyn, voted to disaffiliate from Labour in 2021.

To rapturous applause, Mr Hodson blasted the ex-shadow Brexit secretary for banning his front-bench from visiting picket lines and for refusing to criticise the government’s latest attack on the right to protest, saying: “We condemn Starmer’s Labour.

“The Labour Party was set up to represent the labouring classes. Starmer’s Labour fails to represent striking workers in their time of need.

“It should be the duty of every Labour leader to be on those picket lines, supporting every single worker in struggle.”

He also stressed that the BFAWU would “never shy away from standing with those who have stood by it,” including Mr Corbyn, who is still being vilified by much of the political establishment and the press. 

“Jeremy Corbyn has a history of anti-racism and he’s always stood up for people, wherever they come from,” he said. 

“He’s never been a racist and he’s not an anti-semite.”