Sainsbury’s staff face axe

Unite has expressed its ‘severe disappointment’ today (April 5) that Sainsbury’s is axing hundreds of staff, including up to 900 Unite members –  just days after it agreed to splash out £1.4bn to buy Argos owner, the Home Retail Group.

Unite, which has more than 14,000 members at the supermarket giant Sainsbury’s, said that it would be campaigning hard to reduce the number of compulsory redundancies which will be amongst store trainers and those working nightshift operations.

“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 national officer for food and drink Julia Long.

“We are severely disappointed as Sainsbury’s seems to have deep pockets when it wants, as it has just forked out £1.4bn to purchase the Home Retail Group,” she added.

Sainsbury’s has said that it is creating a new management role that will replace the current role of store trainer. The supermarket giant said it currently employs 870 store trainers, but it will only be creating 280 of the new management positions, for which affected staff may apply.

The retailer has also said that it will “look to redeploy affected colleagues where possible.”

Long noted that Unite appreciates that Sainsbury’s has a good record of redeployment of staff in these situations and added that the union will be exploring “every avenue to ensure continuing employment for our members”.

“We are now entering the 45-day consultation period and will be having meetings with management, including asking the company if it has done an equalities’ audit of those affected by today’s announcement,” she said.

Unite officer Sean Smyth expressed particular concern over the effect Sainsbury’s proposals will have on redundancies in Northern Ireland.

It is estimated that 200 jobs at Sainsbury’s are under threat in Northern Ireland — 120 of these jobs are filled by Unite members.

“While these proposals will impact on all Sainsbury’s stores, we are most concerned about the potential impact on the workforce in stores in Holywood, West Belfast, Strand Road and Dungannon,” he said.

“These proposals come as part of a cost-cutting exercise, in which management propose to rationalise employment in the night shift and store trainers across all stores,” Smyth added.

“This is not the first time that this proposal has been raised by management and follows on from a pilot initiative,” he went on to say.

“While we understand and support the need to deliver efficiencies and to improve the quality of service to customers we are concerned about the impact of these proposals on our members. We will continue to work collaboratively with management to minimise the numbers who are made redundant as a result of these changes.”