Workers at E5 Bakehouse have won a union recognition agreement with their employer, in a case heralded as the first of its kind among UK artisan bakeries.
The company employs more than 100 staff across three sites in the capital. These include its original bakery, flour mill, and shop housed under railway arches in Hackney; its micro-bakery, café, and shop at Poplar’s Bartlett Park; and its recently opened V&A East Storehouse in Stratford’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
E5 Bakehouse is known for its rustic sourdough loaves that use organic heritage wheat grown on a farm it owns in Suffolk.
With a wave of popular independent artisan bakeries in London having emerged in recent years – including The Dusty Knuckle and Toad – E5 Bakehouse is now the first of its scale to formally recognise a union.
Craft Bakers Association’s chief executive Karen Dear admitted it was unusual in the UK, noting that only the much larger businesses among it membership are unionised in terms of employees. “If you have enough workforce collective to gather the momentum for this, as an employer you have to recognise the union whatever your size,” she added.
The agreement at E5 Bakehouse follows over a year of worker-led organising which saw staff across all departments, including bakers, baristas, couriers, café staff, chefs, and kitchen porters, meeting regularly to share experiences, build solidarity, and improve conditions. Represented by the Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB), employees now have a formal route to negotiate pay, hours, and working conditions.
The IWGB highlighted how it has already supported the workers to achieve several wins, including:
- Full pay for staff who lost shifts during an unplanned safety and maintenance closure
- Greater transparency in the company’s pension scheme to ensure ethical investments
- The donation of all bread sale profits on 4 November to a charity in Gaza.
Issy Arnold, a baker and member of the E5 Bakehouse union, noted that workers in bakeries, cafés, and restaurants might think unions aren’t for them. “We hope our landmark recognition agreement proves otherwise,” she said.
“All too often hospitality workers are made to feel like we are entirely dispensable and therefore have no real power to stand up for ourselves, but at E5 we’ve built a strong union that’s already delivered real, material wins. We hope this sparks a wave of organising that shakes up our sector and sees workers finally valued and respected for what we do. We encourage any hospitality workers reading this to get in touch with us for support to start organising in your own workplace,” Arnold added.
Another baker and E5 Bakehouse union member, Mabel Ki, asserted that running an ethical business is as much about how you treat your workers as where you source your ingredients. “By unionising, we’re making sure E5 practices genuine sustainability across all dimensions – social, environmental, and economic,” she commented. “Not just because we care about each other but because we care about working somewhere that has a positive impact.”
IWGB Union general secretary Henry Chango Lopez conceded that organising in the hospitality industry is notoriously difficult, but praised the workers at E5 for overcoming every obstacle in their way to build a powerful union that is already winning change. “This agreement sets the standard for London bakeries, cafes, and restaurants, forging a path forward we hope others will now follow,” he said.
E5 Bakehouse was approached for comment.
No comments yet