Sainsbury’s jobs slash

Retail giant Sainsbury’s today (January 23) announced that it is now consulting with staff over proposed changes to its management structure, which could see substantial job losses.

The company said it would be eliminating the store manager/team leader roles in all of its stores and would make major changes to other management positions with a fewer number of roles.

Affected staff at Sainsbury’s will be given the option of either applying for the new roles, accepting a more junior position or face redundancy consultation.

The move is said to be part of Sainsbury’s drive to cut costs and achieve savings of £500m over the next three years.

Sainsbury’s decision follows a similar plan announced by rival retail giant Tesco, which said on Monday (January 22) that it would be cutting 1,200 management jobs.

It is estimated that ‘thousands’ of workers could be affected. Unite today made the call for no compulsory redundancies.

“This is very bad news for those dedicated workers affected by the planned job losses and Unite will be giving our members maximum support at this difficult time,” said Unite acting national officer for food and drink Bev Clarkson.

“Unite will be seeking guarantees from the management during the 45-day consultation period that there will be no compulsory redundancies for our members,” she added.

“We appreciate that Sainsbury’s has a good record of redeployment of staff in these situations and we will be exploring every avenue to ensure the continuing employment for our members.

“During the consultation period, we will be having meetings with management, including asking the company if it has done an equalities’ impact audit of those affected by today’s announcement.”

Retail and operations director of Sainsbury’s Simon Roberts said, “Our intention is not to reduce overall headcount as a result of these proposals.”

Unite represents more than 12,000 staff working at Sainsbury’s.