British Warehouse Exposed For Sweatshop Practices

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The British national media and especially The Guardian newspaper have uncovered extreme staffing abuse at a leading sports-wear sales chain’s main warehouse in Derbyshire. The warehouse is known locally and now around the World as ‘The Gulag’. With a predominantly agency hire staff of semi-skilled and unskilled labour, the warehouse hires up to 5,000 temps and zero-hours contract staff. The slightest thing can lead to instant dismissal, without formal disciplinary measures or safeguards. Arrive a minute late and pay is docked, take too long to visit the lavatory, be perceived as picking orders too slowly, etc., and you receive a strike warning. Six strikes in a year and you are fired. Staff are personally named as needing to speed up by managers using a public address speaker system. Managers watch the floor from a central viewing room overlooking much of the warehouse. Wages often fall way below the legally regarded National Minimum Wage. Staff are searched frequently and close of shift searches can add 15-20 minutes of unpaid extra time onto a worker’s day, which can only involve a grueling ten hours or more at work in itself. I have endured many of these kind of privations and inconveniences in various warehouses, though it is rare to get them all practiced in one place. Conditions there must be truly unbearable. The management attitude is fiercely unrepentant – denial of well recorded evidence, and asserting that anyone disliking their job is free to leave. This is despite high unemployment and a benefits regime that will withhold payments to staff voluntarily quitting a job. Such businesses are largely served by staff who take their job because it is the only job they can get – making it a living Hell for them is nothing short of greed and sadism. I hope that the exposes this company has faced, forthcoming government and tax investigations and the impact of reduced shares values they are now experiencing, will lead other warehouses to improve their staff conditions before they inevitably face similar exposure. Arthur Chappell