Employees of British sports retailer JJB Sports are going on strike over the company’s pay rates and bonus schemes. 266 member of the general union GMB, who are employed by the JJB distribution warehouse in Wigan , will hold two days of strikes next Tuesday and Thursday. The warehouse is the only one that distributes to all 430 JJB high-street shops. According to GMB Lancashire organiser Sandra Blight, the company has not returned with an offer other than its original offer of a pay rate of 3 percent. For Blight it is not so much about the number, which she does not consider unreasonable, as it is about the principle. “This is about getting all the workers in the distribution warehouse on the same pay rate,” she says. “Currently, everyone is on a different pay rates and only the pickers are eligible for bonuses. This is something else we want to see changed. We are trying to get one basic pay rate and a bonus scheme for all the workers, no matter what their skills. The better the skill set, the more they should be rewarded, but the basis should be the same.” According to her, the lack of uniformity is causing tension on the work floor, which is detrimental to overall production levels and atmosphere.

Blight claims that GMB and JJB had almost reached an agreement, based on one of the retailers’ director’s proposals. At the very last minute, however, founder and executive director David Whelan rejected the proposal. Since then, she asserts, the director in question – Tom Knight – has changed his tune. “We were on a local radio programme together and I found him claiming a single rate of pay was preposterous, when that had been part of his initial proposal!” Whelan is currently on holiday for a few weeks, so there seems to be no way to avoid a strike. JJB executives could not be reached for comment.

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