Tuesday, February 28, 2017

Be a partner in sacking your co-worker

Andy Street quit as the boss of John Lewis last year to try to become the mayor of the West Midlands. If elected in May, he plans to turn back to his former employer in an attempt to revolutionise public services. Street is looking to bring the company’s employee-owned partnership model into vital local services such as transport, social care and skills training, handing workers a stake in their performance.
The Conservative mayoral candidate said he could spin off existing services into new mutually owned operations, provide funding for these and social enterprises to compete for contracts, and allow existing mutuals, enterprises and charities to take on public work. Mutuals are fully or majority owned by members, while social enterprises work to support communities or the environment.

And how different will it be?

It seems the so-called partner workers at the John Lewis and Waitrose Stores will be ''asked'' to cut their fellow workers jobs and conditions again just recently in the interests of modernisation and the commercial interests of the firm.

John Lewis is to axe nearly 800 jobs in its customer restaurants and store administration. In an effort to reduce costs, the group shut some staff canteens about a year ago and introduced longer shifts for delivery drivers. The cuts come just weeks after Waitrose, John Lewis’s sister company, revealed plans to close six stores and remove a level of management in its supermarkets, putting nearly 700 jobs at risk.

Operating profits slumped 31% despite a 4.5% rise in sales in the six months to the end of July as the company invested heavily in equipment to support its online business and increasing pay for staff. Last year the staff bonus was 10%, the lowest for 13 years. This year’s lower bonus will be known on 9 March.


Hat-tip Libcom

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