Category Archives: Tesco

Union rejects pay rise of £1,500 for BT staff and plans strike ballot

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CWU bosses say increase is relative cut in salary but BT says it is its biggest award in two decades

BT has given 58,000 workers a £1,500 pay rise that it says is its biggest award in two decades, despite its largest union rejecting the deal and saying it intends to ballot members over strike action.

Last week BT had a £1,200 pay rise offer rejected by the Communication Workers Union (CWU), which represents about 40,000 of the company’s 100,000 employees, with union bosses describing it as “insulting” and a “relative pay cut” as soaring inflation fuels a cost of living crisis.

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Indian supplier to UK fashion brands agrees to pay £3m in unpaid wages

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Shahi Exports, which makes clothes for the UK high street, has agreed to pay staff minimum wage and arrears

India’s largest garment company has paid out an estimated £3m in unpaid wages to tens of thousands of workers, after two years of refusing to pay the legal minimum wage.

Last month Shahi Exports, which supplies dozens of international brands, agreed to pay nine months of back pay to about 80,000 workers, with further payments expected in the coming months that will increase the total paid back to workers to £7m.

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‘They just worked’: reports of CDs’ demise inspires wave of support

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Format might not have romance of vinyl but its versatility and reliability will never be topped, say supporters

After languishing in his car boot for several years, Jordan Bassett’s CD collection – mostly dating back to his teenage years – will soon be on proud display in his newly converted home office space.

Bassett, a commissioning editor at the NME, has no means of playing the CDs and, in any case, his musical tastes have moved on. But the 100-150 thin, shiny 5in discs have sentimental value – and, who knows, one day they may be part of a revival similar to vinyl among music aficionados.

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Workers paid less than minimum wage to pick berries destined for UK supermarkets

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Exclusive: Workers in Portugal picking berries ending up on the shelves of Marks & Spencer, Waitrose and Tesco allege exploitative conditions

  • Photographs by Francesco Brembati for the Guardian

Farm workers in Portugal appear to have been working illegally long hours picking berries destined for Marks & Spencer, Tesco and Waitrose for less than the minimum wage, according to a Guardian investigation.

Speaking anonymously, for fear of retribution from their employers, workers claimed the hours listed on their payslips were often fewer than the hours they had actually worked.

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Festive shrinkflation: tricks chocolate makers use to make us pay more

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At this time of year, manufacturers have a few new tactics to get us to buy less for more money

Getting value for money might not be your prime goal when buying Christmas presents but if you are planning to snap up chocolates or sweets for the ones you love, it pays to check what you are going to get for your cash. That fancy box or tub may come at a cost (financial and environmental) – and, contrary to appearances, it might mean fewer treats for the recipient, not more.

We’ve all heard about “shrinkflation”, where companies sneak through price rises by shrinking pack sizes, but when it comes to festive confectionery, it’s important to be wise to the other packaging tricks that manufacturers and retailers maybe hope we won’t notice.

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‘Worst fashion wage theft’: workers go hungry as Indian suppliers to top UK brands refuse to pay minimum wage

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Shortfall of 16p a day leaves children living on just rice as suppliers to Nike, Zara and H&M in Karnataka underpay by estimated £41m

Garment workers making clothes for international brands in Karnataka, a major clothing production hub in India, say their children are going hungry as factories refuse to pay the legal minimum wage in what is claimed to be the biggest wage theft to ever hit the fashion industry.

More than 400,000 garment workers in Karnataka have not been paid the state’s legal minimum wage since April 2020, according to an international labour rights organisation that monitors working conditions in factories.

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Stop overfishing or we’ll buy elsewhere, top UK fish firm warns European states

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Young’s Seafood joins calls for sustainable quotas of mackerel, herring and blue whiting to be agreed in line with scientific advice

The UK’s largest seafood processor is threatening to stop sourcing fish from the north-east Atlantic unless coastal states, including the UK and countries in the EU, reach a suitable agreement on managing populations this month.

Young’s Seafood has joined Tesco, Co-op, Princes, Aldi, Asda, Waitrose, Marks & Spencer and other retailers and suppliers in calling for urgent action from ministers to manage populations of mackerel, herring and blue whiting more sustainably.

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Retailers join calls for ‘urgent’ action to restrict harmful tuna fishing methods

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‘Fish aggregating devices’ have been linked to depletion of yellowfin populations and increased bycatch in the Indian Ocean

Global condemnation is growing at the increasingly widespread use of harmful “fish aggregating devices” (FADs) in the fishing industry, as retailers including Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer and the German chain Edeka joined calls for restrictions.

A letter signed by more than 100 NGOs, retailers and artisanal fisheries urges this week’s meeting of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) to consider proposals by Kenya and Sri Lanka to monitor, manage and restrict FADs. The signatories warn of an “urgent need” to improve management of FADs in order to reduce overfishing and rebuild populations of yellowfin tuna.

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UK supermarkets unite after Sainsbury’s advert prompts racist backlash

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Aldi, Asda, Co-op, Iceland, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose run ads back-to-back on Channel 4

A group of leading UK supermarkets have joined together to take a stand against a racist online backlash that followed Sainsbury’s Christmas advertisement featuring a black family.

Aldi, Asda, Co-op, Iceland, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose ran their adverts back-to-back during two primetime slots on Channel 4 on Friday evening, with the hashtag #StandAgainstRacism. Normally, competitors actively avoid airing their ads close together.

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Tesco urged to ditch meat company over alleged links to Amazon deforestation

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Responding to Greenpeace campaign to cut links to Brazilian meat giant JBS, supermarket calls on government to ensure all UK food is deforestation-free

Tesco has called on the UK government to order food companies to ensure all food sold in the UK is deforestation-free. The move comes in response to a new Greenpeace campaign calling on the supermarket to cut links to JBS, the world’s biggest meat company, over its alleged links to farms involved in Amazon deforestation.

The supermarket says the UK should introduce due diligence across supply chains to monitor for deforestation. Germany is also weighing up a due diligence law on supply chains, reportedly supported by Angela Merkel. And more than half of Britons would consider rejecting meat products linked to deforestation, a YouGov poll for Greenpeace has found.

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Tesco withdraws Christmas cards from sale after forced labour claims

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Supermarket halts production in China after six-year-old girl finds plea for help inside card

Tesco says it has suspended production at a factory in China alleged to have forced foreign prisoners to help make charity Christmas cards and also withdrawn them from sale.

The allegations came to light after the Sunday Times reported that Florence Widdicombe, aged six, from Tooting, south London, opened a box of charity Christmas cards from the supermarket and discovered a plea for help inside one of them.

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Factory that supplied Tesco compensated abused worker

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The woman was robbed and told if she protested she would be ‘killed and put in box’

A Bangladeshi factory that produces clothes for Tesco, Sainsbury’s and Mothercare was forced to compensate an “outspoken” female worker after she was beaten up on the orders of management and threatened with being murdered, the Guardian has learned.

The woman claimed to have been “severely beaten up” by security guards and the HR and compliance management at the factory, which is used by the brand Stanley/Stella. She said she was robbed of her severance pay and told that if she protested she would be “killed and her body put in a cardboard box”, an industry watchdog report that endorses her account states.

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UPDATE 1-UK Stocks-Factors to watch on March 5

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* Ultra Electronics: British defence contractor Ultra Electronics said it terminated the $234 million acquisition of Sparton Corp following an unfavourable anti-trust review outcome from the U.S. Department of Justice. * ROYAL BANK OF SCOTLAND: Britain's Royal Bank of Scotland could reach a multi billion-dollar settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice over its mis-selling of toxic mortgage-backed securities within weeks, Sky News reported on Friday, citing sources.