Daylight robbery

Campaigners were joined by Dick Turpin and Black Bess to accuse the employment agencies running Sports Direct’s Shirebrook warehouse in Derbyshire, of ‘daylight robbery’ on Monday (June 13), in a protest outside The Best Connection’s offices in Chesterfield.

Singing a specially adapted version of ‘Stand and Deliver’, the campaigners were led by Dick Turpin and his faithful mare, Black Bess through the streets of Chesterfield to The Best Connection offices in the town, where volunteers were held up by Dick Turpin and robbed of their wages.

The protest was organised by Unite which has been leading the campaign against ‘shameful’ work practices at Sports Direct. ‘Lifting the lid’ on ‘Victorian’ work practices during evidence to the House of Commons Business, Innovation and Skills select committee, Unite revealed that some workers received their wages through pre-paid debit cards.

Costing £10 to get, workers are charged £10 a month in ‘administrative fees’ for the card, as well as 75 pence for cash withdrawals.

As well as Sports Direct tycoon Mike Ashley admitting workers were paid below the minimum wage, the committee also heard how workers, who were one minute late at the retailer’s Shirebrook warehouse, were docked 15 minutes pay.

It also emerged that The Best Connection was charging workers a fee of over £2.45 for ‘insurance services’ straight from their weekly wages with no explanation.

“Workers employed by Sports Direct through The Best Connection and Transline are being subject to daylight robbery,” said Unite regional officer Luke Primarolo.

“Not only have these employment agencies broken the law by failing to pay their staff properly, they are skimming money off workers’ low wages through an ‘insurance service’ scam and by ‘taxing’ them to access their hard earned cash,” he added.

“This shameful money grabbing behaviour combined with a ‘six strikes and you’re out’ rule exposes the exploitative work practices being used by The Best Connection and Transline at Sports Direct’s warehouse,” Primarolo went on to say.

“But it doesn’t’ have to be this way as Unite has shown. We would urge workers at Sports Direct to join Unite to help us restore dignity in the workplace and get the back pay they are owed.

“We also call on Mike Ashley to work with Unite to stop the abuses which are being done in the name of Sports Direct.”

Watch yesterday’s protest in the video below:

• Filming by Martin Scanlon and photography by Mark Harvey