A film highlighting the plight of workers who lost their job when production was moved overseas has been launched as part of a new form of campaigning.
Unite said the short film, detailing the loss of 150 jobs when Lil-lets closed a factory in Birmingham last summer, will be posted onto its website and on YouTube as well as being emailed to hundreds of thousands of union members. Unite is calling for a consumer boycott of Lil-lets' products in protest at a row over the pensions of former workers.
Joint general secretary Derek Simpson said: "The power of the internet gives unions the potential to go beyond their membership and reach out to millions of people and influence their consumer choices.
"We've taken the period drama genre and used it to highlight one of the biggest issues facing this country - the exportation of UK jobs to low cost countries and the effect this has on the people who suffer the consequences. Globalisation is driving down wages and conditions. If left unchecked this race to the bottom could land us back in the 19th Century.
"This is the first but certainly not the last time the union will use the internet to bring workers' rights and consumer choice together to hold employers to account."
The union argued some workers at the firm's Alum Rock Road site were cheated out of their full pensions when it transferred production to Taiwan.
Unite claimed that 46 employees, all aged between 50 and 60, had understood they would receive enhanced pension settlements - equivalent to what they would have got if they worked until normal retirement age - as part of the redundancy package.
But Duccio Baldi, chief executive of the firm, said that Lil-lets had always made it clear that it was unable to offer such a deal.
