I like shopping at the Co-Op as a rule – it still has that feelgood connection to the labour movement that you don’t quite get with ASDA-WalMart. However, funny things seem to be afoot at the company, whose funerals wing has taken the monumental step of de-recognising the GMB, and ending a relationship over 100 years old.

The Co-Op got their rebuttal in early, issuing a press release before the GMB could react to the news. They claim it’s merely a plan by the Co-Op Group as a whole to rationalise their relations with unions. The wider group has extensive USDAW, T&G and NACO (natch) membership, and the GMB is only operating in Co-Operative Funeralcare, as the smallest of the three non-specialist unions recognised there. Apparently the GMB are just one union too many to deal with, and things would go much more smoothly with fewer groups to talk to.

My guess is that this is a bit of window dressing (Surely a joint shop isn’t too difficult for management to deal with? In my experience, the unions in a joint shop do most of the extra co-ordinating work themselves), and as the GMB section have been the biggest pain to management, calling a company boycott over their current pay campaign, they’re hitting back by dealing only with those unions who aren’t in dispute. If so, it’s a pretty low act to try to disenfranchise by the back door those workers with a grievance – even if they were being rash in their tactics.

GMB General Secretary Paul Kenny said: “It is indicative of a senior management lacking the principles upon which the co-operative movement was founded”. I reckon he’s right. Co-Op may be playing by the letter, but most definitely not the spirit.