A LEADING Union has won a victory over an East End hospitality giant.

Unite the Union have reported that workers at Calton-based West Brewery have been placed back on furlough on 80 per cent of their wage, backdated from Saturday, October 10.

The move comes just days after we reported West Brewery had asked workers to take their annual leave entitlement to cover the 16 day lockdown period enforced by the Scottish Government. Workers had also been offered shifts in West’s brewery and warehouse at just eight hours a week. Workers claimed this was a fraction of the hours many of them had previously been working.

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According to UK Government rules, workers at the brewery are eligible to be re-furloughed under the flexible furlough scheme as long as employers submitted the claim from July onwards.

An employee at the East End brewery who has asked not to be named said that most workers had been contacted by phone yesterday to discuss the terms. He said: “I think it’s just a huge relief for everyone. We’ve gone from some people not being able to afford rent and bills to having some sort of stability heading into winter. Staff are curious though why this wasn’t implemented straight away, as the money was clearly there all along”

Bryan Simpson, industrial organiser for Unite said: “We are pleased that the owners of West Brewery have finally decided to listen to their workers and put them back on furlough as the Job Retention Scheme rules always allowed. It shouldn’t however have taken a public campaign and media attention to make them do the right thing.”

“We hope that West will realise that the best way to ensure the smooth running of their organisation is to formally recognise the collective voice of their workforce which is Unite Hospitality”

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A spokeswoman for West Brewery said: “There is obviously a huge amount of uncertainty in hospitality at the moment and everyone involved with it is extremely worried.We feel the best thing we can do for our staff is to secure their jobs for the long term. The current Job Retention scheme and the investment required from employers to support it was not a viable option for us when this current closure period was announced. However, since details of the Restrictions Fund have been published, our Finance team have had the opportunity to look at all possible options and we therefore will be furloughing our affected people.”