Strike by Northern Ireland vets risks empty supermarket shelves, industry warns

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A pay strike by vets and port inspectors next week threatens to seriously disrupt agri-food imports and Northern Ireland’s meat sector and could lead to empty shelves in shops, industry and union figures have warned.

The five-day walkout by 260 vets and phytosanitary inspectors from the Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance and GMB trade unions will pose the first test of the post-Brexit Windsor framework deal that began to come into effect at the start of this month.

Meat and other chilled foods entering Northern Ireland from Britain under the Windsor framework’s red lane — which require EU sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) checks to be able to travel on into Ireland and the EU — will be affected.

The same goods that are for sale only in Northern Ireland and enter the region via the green lane will not be affected by the stoppage between October 30 and November 3.

“We’re being told that the green lane will just flow,” said Nichola Mallon, head of trade at industry group Logistics UK.

The real challenge, she said, was for importers who cannot guarantee their goods will stay in Northern Ireland — for example, retailers operating on both sides of the border.

“Then the advice is you . . . need to come through the EU SPS facilities, so either through [the Irish ports of] Dublin or Rosslare,” Mallon said. “We have a significant number of members who operate on an all-island basis and this will cause significant disruption for them.”

But Carmel Gates, general secretary of Nipsa, the union that represents virtually all of the striking workers, said it was not just agri-food goods entering Northern Ireland that would be affected.

She said the region’s own poultry and other meat industries would also be hit because vets would not be able to issue health certificates.

“All meat and poultry [slaughter] will have to halt. This is designed to be a significant action,” she said, adding that “we expect some supermarket shelves will empty” as a result.

Mallon said the strike “reinforces the need” for a UK-EU SPS deal to “remove and reduce frictions on the trade of SPS goods between the UK and the EU”.

Northern Ireland’s Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs has urged businesses to put in place their own contingency plans ahead of next week’s stoppage. It has warned of “significant disruption” to the delivery of veterinary and animal health services, including SPS inspections at meat plants.

Pay rises for public service workers in Northern Ireland have been restricted because of the region’s severe budget crisis.

Gates said no offer had yet been made for the year beginning August 1 and that a lump-sum payment of £552 last year represented an increase of less than 1 per cent for many workers at a time of double-digit inflation.

The action by vets and inspectors follows strikes by teachers and health workers in recent months.

Glyn Roberts, chief executive of trade body Retail NI, said the strike “could not have come at a worse time” with the Windsor framework still bedding in.

The UK government has yet to say whether contingency measures, such as drafting in vets and inspectors from Britain, will be put in place.

The government’s Northern Ireland Office said it was working closely with the agriculture department to mitigate the strike’s impact but gave no details.

Mallon said the walkout would increase costs and paperwork for businesses being asked to use Irish ports for a week, as well as for consumers. “Supply chains can’t just flip on their head overnight,” she said.