“I couldn’t survive without my partner”

In part 5 of our series, Britain Deserves a Pay Rise, UNITElives speaks with a man who’s one of the many thousands of casualties in the supermarket price wars, in which workers pay the price while big chains rake in the profits.

 
John Harper*, a supervisor at Sainsbury’s, remembers when terms and conditions for its workers were much better. But since large grocery chains have entered into vicious price wars to drive down costs, management, he says, has become “ruthless.”

 
“Wages, of course, have never been good where I work,” Harper explains. “But the way they treat us now, they just refuse to work with you.”

 
Harper says there are many mothers who work for Sainsbury’s part-time, whose managers used to be sensitive to their schedules so they could work while their children were in school. Now, however, their shifts are changed in the very last minute. In instances where these hard-working parents cannot change their schedule, they’re shown the door.

 
“They’ve got no compassion,” he says. “And it’s not only that, they’ve eroded our pensions over the years, too. We’re basically in a situation now where we workers are paying to line the pockets of our bosses.”

 
Since Harper’s partner, with whom he lives, has a job that pays a good wage, he doesn’t struggle with living costs the way many of his colleagues do. In this respect, he considers himself lucky, but he explains how it’s a double-edged sword.

 
“I work hard but because my wages are so low, I pay a very small portion of the rent and expenses and my partner pays the rest,” he says. “It’s very demoralising to feel that you aren’t pulling your full weight, even though I’m working full-time.”

For others who work at Sainsbury’s, though, living can be an unbelievable struggle.

 
“As a workplace rep, I hear some really awful stories,” he says. “Many people who work here have it so bad that they’re embarrassed to talk about it. One worker can only afford to buy the chips from Sainsbury’s, and that’s it. Some people walk two hours to work because they can’t afford to take the bus.”

 
Although Sainsbury’s recently reported record profits, the chain still chooses to keep its workers’ wages low.

 
“To be honest, it doesn’t necessarily make me angry. But it does get you down. It’s demeaning,” Harper says. “A good wage shows that your employer treats you with respect. And we deserve respect since we work so hard.”

 
“The top bosses of these big grocery chains, they use our roads, they use our schools, they benefit from our society,” he adds. “But they don’t contribute to this society. I can understand keeping wages down when profits are down, but not when they’re up.”

 
When asked whether he and other workers like him deserve a pay rise, Harper notes, “It’s not a matter of deserving a pay rise. We have a right to wages that enable us to live good lives. After all, it’s us workers who create their profits.”

 
Join Unite and thousands of workers across the country at the TUC rally tomorrow (October 18) as we fight together for fair pay.

*Name changed to protect privacy