I have worked for Sainsbury’s for 23 years, and have loved working for the company despite its previous attempts to reduce our pay and terms and conditions. A few years ago, they scrapped our profit-share scheme and Christmas bonus. New starters have found themselves working under worse and worse contracts since 2003.
But never before have I been threatened with working for less money for the same work, as we are being now. The spin on the new contract is that it is a pay rise. This is not true: I stand to lose £1,200 per year due to premiums such as paid breaks and time-and-a-half for Sunday shifts being taken away. As someone who earns less than £10,000 a year, this is a huge cut to my salary. I work unsociable hours, late evenings and weekends, not through choice, but because every few years we are asked to move to increasingly unsociable hours and threatened with losing our jobs if we don’t agree.
The new, higher hourly rate Sainsbury’s are offering is £9.20 and will be locked until 2020 when the minimum wage will be £9 anyway. It won’t make up for what long-serving staff are losing. Because the new deal robs us of paid breaks, a colleague currently on a 39-hour contract will find they will only be paid for 37 hours, which will be a net pay loss.
Those working unsocial hours, weekends and especially night shifts will be hit hardest. The new night shift rate is being promoted as being higher than it is at present, but it only covers 12-5am. Most night-shift colleagues work eight-hour shifts starting before 12 and finishing after 5am. This will also affect our colleagues who work to fulfil online shopping orders who start at 5am – many of them women with children – as they will no longer get an uplift for their early hours that helps with the extra costs of getting to work for 5am as a result of very little public transportation being available at that time of day.
While suffering this sort of decline in terms and conditions, how can we be motivated to deliver great customer service? Morale is at rock bottom, and I’ve seen fellow colleagues working the bare minimum, which is counterproductive to what Sainsbury’s want to achieve and risks driving away customers. I feel very cheated and upset that I may no longer be able to afford to do the job that I love, as Sainsbury’s joins the race to the bottom..
• The anonymous writer has worked for Sainsbury’s for 23 years
