Pub workers' union GMB revealed yesterday that thousands of tenants who are forced to pay exorbitant prices to huge pub chains are preparing for industrial action.
Investigations by the Commons business and enterprise committee discovered that many landlords were being overcharged for stock by as much as £12,000 a year by the beer companies that also own the pubs.
And it found that more than two-thirds of the 25,000 tenants tied to chains - known as pubcos - such as Greene King and Marston's were earning less than £15,000 per year for working up to 60 hours a week.
GMB national secretary Paul Maloney explained that "the total inequality of bargaining power between pubcos and lessees is part of the problem in this industry.
"The property owners refuse to acknowledge the economic problems that arise as a consequence of the wholesale prices they charge the tenants, but the Office of Fair Trading have washed their hands of this and said that it must be dealt with in negotiations."
Mr Maloney said that "this is why tied pub tenants, through the Fair Pint campaign and the Pub Revolution movement, have decided to join the GMB and pursue industrial action to secure negotiations with pubcos."
A Pub Revolution campaign spokesman added that "there is no doubt in our minds that pub tenants need to unionise to free themselves of the yoke of the pubcos."
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