A Fine Kettle of Fish for Union-Busting Snack Company

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"Kettle Foods this week called in Hill & Knowlton to protect its bruised reputation following a widely criticised attempt to dissuade its workers from unionizing," reports PR Week. The PR firm's London office confirmed it is working for the upscale potato chip maker, "on a reactive basis." On October 1, The Guardian reported that Kettle Chips' UK owners had brought in the California-based Burke Group, "to dissuade the 340 workers at their Norwich factory from joining Unite, the country's largest union." Burke Group runs Omega Training, called "one of the leading US union-busters." News of the anti-union campaign led to calls to boycott Kettle Chips. The Norwich workers voted against joining the Unite union. A local labor organizer blamed the vote on the company's "long poisonous campaign not to join the union."