Staff at Derbyshire store 'devastated' by 'kick in the teeth' contract changes after 'overall disaster' of working during pandemic

An employee at the shop, who wishes to remain anonymous, said that staff have been left ‘feeling gutted’ and ‘struggling’ as they face losing their jobs unless they sign contracts offering lower pay and fewer guaranteed hours.

This comes after months where the shop was ‘busier than ever’ during lockdown as staff worked on the front line, as key workers, in conditions described by the employee as “an overall disaster”.

A spokesperson for Pounstretcher has denied that PPE in stores was inadequate, and declined to comment on the new contracts.

The employee said: “When the country went into lockdown we still needed to go to work because we supplied food to people.

“We had to make our own barriers for the tills as we were told Poundstretcher would not be supplying them, and we were told to just use whatever we could find on the shop floor, which could have been contaminated with anything. We had to make them using plastic and bamboo sticks.

"We had one bottle of hand sanitiser and we were not allowed to get any more off the shop floor as we were told they were for sale.

"We were not given masks until long after lockdown began, close to when it started being lifted. We were given screens and visors then, but that was too late.

"It has been an overall disaster.”

The situation for staff was made worse, the employee said, when in spite of their work during lockdown Poundstretcher sent out letters saying they all needed to accept new contracts which reduced their pay and hours.

The first of the letters, which were seen by the Derbyshire Times, was sent out three weeks ago and stated that the company would pursue the voluntary reduction of hours as its strategy for cutting costs.

A second letter then stated that reduced hours were compulsory and those who did not take them would be made redundant.

The new contracts would see the staff moved onto Poundstretcher contracts from their current ones, which are still based on the terms they were on at the Co-op before Poundstretcher bought the shop and transferred staff over.

A spokesperson for Poundstretcher said: “Any suggestion that the company has not provided personal protective equipment is wholly wrong and completely untrue. The information given to you is totally without foundation.

“The company has provided all stores with thousands of face shields identical to the ones used in the National Health Service. We have good stocks of these and stores are able to order additional supplies with no problem whatsoever.

“In addition the company sells face masks and stores are able to use these and provide them to all store employees in line with the new government legislation requiring all retail employees to wear a face covering. The use is recorded by the store manager called the store consumable process.

“All stores have also been provided with 5mm thick rigid plastic till screens to protect both customers and our employees. The Store Manager at Dronfield has confirmed that these are in place.”