![[The new Farmers Boy factory at Girlington]](farmers1.jpg)
November 10, 2000
What exactly constitutes poor wages and conditions? And who is best placed to judge?
When campaigners accused McDonalds of imposing both on their workers, the junk-food giants sued for libel. It was a bad move. After the now famous McLibel trial - the longest in legal history - finally ended in 1997, judge Bell found that McDonalds did indeed pay low wages.
There is no standard definition of low pay. In April last year the government introduced the legal minimum wage - currently £3.70 - a level below which no-one should be paid.
UNISON, which traditionally represents low paid public sector workers, argues for a minimum wage set at "half male-median earnings". This would currently give a minimum wage figure of £5.80. The Low Pay Unit's official definition of low pay is anything under "two-thirds male-median earnings" giving a current level of £7.74.
Clearly by these standards pay at Morrisons is low. But the Low Pay Unit told KDIS that the wage rates paid by Morrisons were pretty much the going rate for the industry - very similar to the rates paid by ASDA, Tescos etc. But who sets the "rates for the industry" if not the supermarket giants themselves?
Morrisons do pay an additional annual "profit related" bonus, equivalent to about 2 weeks pay, to all employees who qualify by having worked for a full financial year. Company records indicate that around two thirds of the workforce receive this bonus.
But these figures also indicate a high turnover of staff - perhaps as much as 30%. Does this suggest a degree of disatisfaction with pay and conditions?
KDIS decided to interview a small, random sample of current and former employees of Morrisons. They worked in a number of different departments, but primarily at Farmers Boy. The opinions they expressed suggest that grievances about pay and conditions are not uncommon.
Adam worked as a butcher at Farmers Boy for eighteen years until the new Farmers Boy factory opened in Girlington 2 years ago:
"Everyone thinks its a family firm, old Ken, a Bradford company. But people don’t know the truth about the poor wages and conditions".
Fellow butcher John agreed:
"The place was horrendous, absolutely horrendous. I worked there for seventeen years, it was all right at first but it just got worse and worse, they wanted more for less all the time... At one stage they had six agencies recruiting for staff because no one wanted to work for them and people kept leaving straight away."
Pete, another Farmers Boy veteran summed it up more succinctly, "It was a hell hole".
Of those interviewed by KDIS, most had worked for Morrisons for upwards of fifteen years. All spoke of the erosion of terms and conditions during that period. The issue of weekend and bank holiday pay rates was a particularly thorny issue.
"I’d worked there for just under eighteen years. Morrisons wanted us to sign away bank holidays and work them. They wanted to introduce a seven day operation, even bank holidays. If you’d worked there for over five years you would get five days off later in the year and a annual lump sum, so I was alright.. But if you’d been there less than five years you just had to work through, no extra money, just on the basic hourly rate!"
![[Morrisons payslip from October showing £4.24 an hour]](payslip.gif)
During the summer of 1998 both the Farmers Boy
Butchers department and the ‘Lifestyle’ warehouse were closed down
in Bradford and moved to Colne and Wakefield respectively. For those whose
seniority had previously offered protection from attacks on wages and conditions,
things were about to change.
Chris who worked at ‘Lifestyle’ for eighteen years recalls the ultimatum staff were given when considering their future:
"We were offered the choice to go to Wakefield or take redundancy, but redundancy should never have been on the table. In my opinion we should have been looking at ‘constructive dismissal’. What they were offering us in Wakey was nothing like what we had in Bradford in terms of pay and conditions... they were completely changing our site of work, adding two hours onto our working week and getting rid of all Saturday pay. They were making our jobs redundant."
It was the same story at the ‘Butchery Unit’.
"When they closed the butchers part of Farmers Boy we were offered the chance to apply for jobs there, but on much worse terms and conditions than we’d had in Bradford. We had to reapply for these jobs, no guarantees, all the benefits and seniority we’d built up over the years were just gone."
Chris said:
"Basically it was move to Colne or accept redundancy. Three months before they closed it down we were taken up into the canteen for a slide show, they didn’t say why. Anyway one of the managers put the wrong slide in first. It said "Your Redundancy Package"! That was how we found out".
Mick a shop steward at Morrisons at the time remembers the hard-line the company took:
"We asked for buses over there, they refused. We asked for a relocation package, they said no. It was like they were telling us ‘thanks for thirty years service now fuck off out the door’. The whole thing was very nasty."
Julie, who worked at the new Girlington Morrisons store on £3.85 an hour, including Saturdays, explained how more was always expected:
"We finished work at ten and then were paid till half past to clean down. But usually we were kept back until quarter to eleven till it was all done, but we were never paid for it."
Kate, who worked in the same store on £4.24 an hour was equally unimpressed,
"During the induction training we were told about Health and Safety and these cleaning chemicals we would be using. But in practice you didn’t have the time to use them or they’d run out. Most of the time they just weren’t there... I slipped once on water from a leaking fridge, hurt my back and knee. I’d told the manager before but he’d just said sweep it away, we’ll work round it. Its still there now!"
Alan earned £6.40 an hour as a skilled machine operator at Farmers Boy, which he felt was a decent rate. He worked there for 9 years and knew Christopher Brown whose web site had sparked so much trouble:
"I knew young Chris Brown and thought he was a good lad. I must admit I agreed with a lot he said. I don't think Mr Morrison knows half of what goes on there. It's the management I blame. A lot of people feel the same."
Update: May 2001
Morrisons announced that it was to cut the wages of some of it's lowest paid workers, mainly at it's Farmers Boy factory where 1 in 10 workers will face an hourly pay cut. The cuts come into effect on July 1st. The cut comes at a time when Morrisons profits soared to £219 million and it was quoted on the FTSE 100 index of the UK's biggest companies for the first time.
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See also: Morrisons - factfile and
Ken Morrison - profile.