Vindictive decision

As supermarket chain Lidl announced last month that it would be giving its staff in England, Wales and Scotland a significant pay rise, pledging to keep minimum rates in line with the Living Wage, it simultaneously denied its Northern Ireland workers the wage uplift.

 
Now, it has been confirmed that a Lidl worker in Northern Ireland was dismissed after questioning the chain’s brazen pay discrimination on Facebook.

 
“The decision to dismiss this worker will have a devastating impact on the young person concerned,” said Unite regional officer Susan Fitzgerald. “His only crime was to post comments on Facebook questioning the fairness of Lidl pay policy, referencing details already in the public domain and which had already caused widespread public revulsion at the German-owned retailer.

 
“This vindictive decision by management demonstrates that Lidl is running scared of public opinion,” she added. “They know there is a widespread public revulsion over their unfair policy of paying workers in Northern Ireland less than they do workers in England, Scotland and Wales. This decision will only exacerbate that.”

 
Unite has called a solidarity protest for pay equality outside Lidl on High Street, Belfast, this Thursday (October 8) at 5pm.

 
The union is also engaging with its legal counsel to bring forward a potential claim against Lidl’s pay discrimination, as well as talking to local political leaders who have agreed to communicate their concerns directly to the supermarket giant’s German senior corporate management team.

 
“There is no legal or moral justification for paying workers in Northern Ireland less than workers who do the same work in Britain,” Fitzgerald went on to say. “In trying to justify this position Lidl has sought to mislead the media by introducing the red-herring claim that they pay workers the UK Living Wage of £7.85. However, we have members working for the company who continue to be paid significantly less than that.”

 
“Lidl believes that it can succeed through adopting bully-boy tactics to threaten those members of staff who publicly question their pay policy but they are mistaken — the workers do not stand alone,” she warned. “Alongside our efforts to overturn this decision through the appeals process, Unite will build a campaign to secure pay equality for workers in Northern Ireland.”

 
Unite has called on all trade unionists, community activists and shoppers to support the solidarity pay equality protest in Belfast on Thursday.