Unholy row erupts over bookshop jobs
Last updated at 14:54, Wednesday, 02 April 2008
A BITTER row has erupted over the fate of seven staff from a Christian bookshop in Carlisle who were dismissed because they refused to accept new contracts after their business was sold off.
Those affected all worked at the bookshop near Carlisle Cathedral which was run by The Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge.
Their new boss – a Texas-based charity known as SSG – expressed regret after confirming that because the staff had refused to accept new employment contracts they lost their jobs on March 31.
The charity plans to hire replacement staff.
But the shop’s former manager Raymond Witty today issued a statement, claiming that the shop’s staff were dismissed by email by a senior official within the SSG Bookshops group.
He said: “The new contracts offered poorer terms and conditions, including asking staff to work longer hours for no extra pay, loss of sick pay, part-time staff losing their guaranteed hours and more control given to the employer in relation to where staff work and when holidays are taken.
“Negotiations with staff broke down.”
He claimed staff were issued with an “ultimatum” on January 18, telling them to either sign the new contracts or lose their jobs immediately.
The workers are now taking advice from the shop workers union Usdaw.
Christine Peacock, a lawyer with the union, said workers from the Carlisle shop now intend to take their former employer to a tribunal.
She said: “They were offered substantially inferior contracts, and in the particular the part-time staff were faced with an enforced casualisation of their jobs.
“Usdaw supports their cases.”
In its statement, SSG said that it took over the chain in October 2006 and is now operated in a highly competitive retail environment.
The company said SPCK had been desperate to rid itself to the entire chain. The chain was losing hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.
Most of the shops have thrived under the management of two Texan brothers, Mark and Phil Brewer, who run SSG, said the statement, and the worst is now over. The charity continues to look for innovative ways to sell Christian books.
First published at 11:36, Wednesday, 02 April 2008
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk
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SPCK's finances were abysmal well before SSG took over the bookshops. That is entirely the responsibility of SPCK and all the managers. You simply cannot blame this on the current lot at SSG.
Had SSG not taken on the shops, all of them would have been closed at least 2 years ago. SSG gets the credit for that full stop. Instead of fuming about an "inferior contract," why wasn't Raymond Witty volunteering to put in the extra hours needed to keep his shop going? Plenty of us were happy to sign the new contracts and carry on with our duties. Only a few held out, seemingly because they care more about the finer points of employment law than the good of the chain.View all comments on this article
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I must take issue with the comment made by Ecclesiastical. Firstly, if the staff who ran the former SPCK shops had been offered the opportunity to do a buy out by SPCK, very few of the shops would have closed. They would have been run by knowledgeable staff who knew their customers and for the first time had an entirely free hand. As it was SPCK just gifted the chain into the hands of two complete unknowns , a decision that they now very much regret. Secondly, I know Raymond personally to be a diligent, knowledgeable Manager who has run the Carlisle shop well. Putting in even more hours certainly does no good if you have not got the stock to sell in the first place ! And that is the position Raymond and all the Managers at SSG have been in. They were all banned from reordering any stock by Mark and Phil Brewer and promised a central purchasing scheme that never materialised. Thirdly, I know for a fact that most staff and Managers were not happy to sign the contract and did not, they have either left or been fired, so in this too you are incorrect.
Posted by Plato on 4 April 2008 at 23:53