Asda managers called in for on the spot sackings - GMB reaction

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Date / 5th July 2005

GMB National Office has just received a report from our Yorkshire Region Officer Neil Derrick. He has told us that the managers who attended yesterday's briefing meetings in Gloucester and Penrith have returned to the stores this morning and have taken down the appraisal records and attendance histories of managers in the stores. He advises that managers have been sacked on the spot and seen to leave the stores in tears. This report was confirmed by our Lancashire Region as also happening at stores in the North West.

Harry Donaldson GMB senior negotiator for ASDA reacting to ASDA's announcement of job losses and speed ups said:

"What GMB Officers responsible for ASDA have reported to me this morning is nothing short of appalling. How can a profitable industry like the supermarkets and a company like ASDA treat its workers as disposable items?

"I call on ASDA senior management to put a stop this treatment immediately. GMB will represent all its members in ASDA and we call upon the rest of the workforce to join the GMB to enforce their employment rights.

"GMB do not accept the premise that ASDA and the other supermarket chains should be allowed to engage in a perpetual competitive battle which directly undermines the living standards of the workforce in the supply chain and in the depots and stores.

"Supermarkets should compete on quality and price. They should not be allowed to 'auction' away the very well being of the workers who produce and distribute the merchandise which delivers for them already vast profits.

"GMB want the Office of Fair Trading to step in to this destructive battle to promulgate a set of mandatory ethical standards that should be followed by all the supermarket chains in their competitive battles. We will seek the force of law for this safeguard.

Left to themselves the supermarkets are in a destructive race to the bottom."