This was not the living wage idea at all B/Q!

Change.org Don't use living wage as excuse to cut pay & benefits

Kevin Smith United Kingdom I have worked for B&Q for over 5 years, I started in the business working as a part time customer advisor and have worked my way up to a management position. I live and work in a high cost living area of London. The past month has been one of the most difficult for me personally and as a manager.

In early February 2016, after the Government announced that the minimum wage would be increased to a new 'national living wage', B&Q ran a consultation of its pay and rewards framework. They proposed the following changes:

removal of time and a half pay for working Sundays, restructuring of allowances for working in high cost of living areas of the UK removal of double time for working bank holidays (now proposed to be 1.5) Removal of a summer and winter bonus equating to 6% of annual salary The full time customer advisors are being hit the hardest. Those who have worked within the business for over a decade and know our customers and our business the best are losing thousands of pounds a year. B&Q are asking people to sign their new terms and conditions of employment or they will be dismissed.

As a manager it has been incredibly difficult conducting consultations with people that are set to lose thousands of pounds and telling them that if they don't sign by March 24th they will lose their job.

Big businesses like B&Q are using the national living wage as an excuse to cut overall pay and rewards for the people that need it the most. I feel ashamed to work for a business that treats their employees with so little respect. I feel ashamed to work for a business that proposes to pay neighbouring stores two separate rates of pay. I hope that there are others out there that feel the same and support this petition.

I hope that with the support of others, through signing this petition, we can influence B&Q and other businesses to reverse these changes. I also hope they acknowledge that treating people in this way will have a negative impact on their business in the future.

**I've written this petition under a pseudonym to protect myself at work

Interjection. I have no idea if the link below works, but it should be easy enough to find. Time has run out, but really this if the whole truth, stinks. If they are in financial trouble, the best approach is always to consult the work force, but this sounds like just maximising profits to me. Brian Sign the petition

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Could be that this was for me only. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff
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Hi,

Your link was broken. This link works:

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and short form:

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I am about to sign that.

Tim

Reply to
Tim Watts

Thought it might be. Not in a position to test it when I wrote it. Brian

Reply to
Brian Gaff

I'm not sure I agree. It is indeed hard for anyone to have their pay cut, but in this instance it seems to be the higher paid workers are having pay cuts to finance the increased pay to the thousands of living-wage workers. B&Q can't magic up extra money to do it without someone having to suffer.

Reply to
Dave W

Sadly living wage is just another socialist idea that has teh opposite effect.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Given the number of people in this group that won't shop at B&Q why is there a sudden concern for their staff?

Not shopping there is why they need to cut costs.

Reply to
dennis

Really> Who did you read as being the higher paid workers having theirs cut for the lower paid?

If it's the 'customer advisors', I'd think that just a posh name for shop assistants.

B&Q is a special case in that's they're failing anyway. Perhaps it's time they sold out to someone who has a better idea on how to run such a business.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

So this government is now socialist in your opinion. Just shows how little that is worth.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

Like the Minimum Wage?

I am fully in support of the latter and I assume the former is just a trendy name for an increased Minimum Wage.

And I'm no lefty - but I do subscribe to certain socialist principles.

Reply to
Tim Watts

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I'm assuming the above is correct.

Reply to
whisky-dave

If you cam make sense of it. Seems to be little difference in pay between all those you'd normally see on the floor.

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

and why would that be wrong.

When I worked in a supermarket those that worked on teh till got 10p per hour more, but they didn't always work on the tills.

The minium wage should be set for the whole country a living wage would depend on where you lived. For MPs it's mean you get a free house, for the majority it would mean a travel expense. If certain supermarkets paid a living wage rather than a working wage then those in London at least wouldn't have to sign up for benifits or tax credits.

Reply to
whisky-dave

Brian Gaff scribbled

Kingfisher, owners of B&Q are in the poo.

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DIY giant Kingfisher has announced a 20.5% fall in statutory pre-tax profit as it reaches the halfway mark in its plan to close 65 B&Q stores.

If I were working there, I'd looking to move.

Reply to
Jonno

The turnip scribbled

Remind us, how old were before you left your parents for a home of your own?

43 IIRC.
Reply to
Jonno

They can actually, by increasing the prices of what they sell. And doing that is unlikely to see them do any worse than the competition because they will have to increase their prices too if they have to pay their lowest paid people more due to the new national living wage.

Reply to
John Akers

Talking to yourself again Wodney?

Reply to
Dave Plowman (News)

The problem is it creates unemployment

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Must be why Britain has one of the lower unemployment rates of the majors in the OECD and EU and so many are showing up in Britain because the unemployment rate is much lower than it is where they are coming from.

Reply to
John Akers

And those on the living wage also have to pay the higher prices, net gain = zero

Reply to
alan_m

I don't buy that.

Every time something that helps the worker[1] is announced, some random "business leader"[2] whines and whines about how it will collapse the economy, kill their business or cause bony dudes on horseback to appear.

And every time, 6 months later, everyone seems to be managing just fine.

[1] The person who by virtue of his individual position is automatically at a negotiating disadvantage with a larger employer. You do need some regulation to even the odds. [2] Who are they? I didn't elect any "leaders". I suspect it means the first bloke they found who ran a business who'd give a soundbite - well of course they are going to whine.

There's a happy medium between businesses going extinct due to over regulation and minimum pay vs. Frederick Engles' Conditions of the Working Classes[3].

[3] Worth a read if you want to see where we've come from.

And I think we are within a reasonable distance of the "happy medium". Clearly the government think it's a good thing (more votes, or actually a good thing, who knows) that the line is pushed over a smidge.

I don't know how much we need a minimum wage adjustment, but what they've done is hardly earth shattering - and seems optional anyway, so I'm not totally clear what has been achieved. Possibly a lot of propaganda, and it certainly does not look like a Leninist's wet dream.

Reply to
Tim Watts

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