By Deborah Hobson
Draconian work place practices may be underpinning the success of supermarket giant Tesco, as reported to The Latest.com (see 'Tescomania' and comments).
Tesco's phenomenal growth, marked by its strategy of providing a complete shopping experience for its customers, has seen its profits rise above the £2 billion mark this year. Victory in bruising price wars with rivals like Wal-Mart- owned Asda has resulted in a one pound in every £8 spend at its stores.
However, as with all battles, there are casualties and staff may be finding life in 'Tesco-World' a lot less rosier than the supermarket chain's customers. In its pursuit of maximum profits, has Tesco decided to squeeze from the bottom and subject its staff to underhand practices like reducing holiday entitlement as a pay back to the company for work days lost due to employee illness?
The Independent newspaper reported recently that Asda has drawn up a secret plan to break up the general workers union GMB's protection of its workforce amid reports of job cuts.
Profit winner or loser: these are worrying times for all supermarket staff.
Draconian work place practices may be underpinning the success of supermarket giant Tesco, as reported to The Latest.com (see 'Tescomania' and comments).
Tesco's phenomenal growth, marked by its strategy of providing a complete shopping experience for its customers, has seen its profits rise above the £2 billion mark this year. Victory in bruising price wars with rivals like Wal-Mart- owned Asda has resulted in a one pound in every £8 spend at its stores.
However, as with all battles, there are casualties and staff may be finding life in 'Tesco-World' a lot less rosier than the supermarket chain's customers. In its pursuit of maximum profits, has Tesco decided to squeeze from the bottom and subject its staff to underhand practices like reducing holiday entitlement as a pay back to the company for work days lost due to employee illness?
The Independent newspaper reported recently that Asda has drawn up a secret plan to break up the general workers union GMB's protection of its workforce amid reports of job cuts.
Profit winner or loser: these are worrying times for all supermarket staff.
Thomas L. Blair is a sociologist and political blogger on the Chronicleworld 'for creative renewal in Black Britain and Afro-Europe'. His work is honoured in the British Library's archive of "social, historic and culturally significant web-based material from the UK domain". He won top prize in the blogging competition on The-Latest.
Sumantra Maitra is a freelance journalist from Mumbai, India. He is a correspondent for All Sports magazine, and a foreign affairs blogger for the Washington Examiner. He has written articles for news website Merinews.com and other regional publications. Sumantra runs a blog at DailyWorldWatch.wordpress.com. He provided exclusive eyewitness reports for The-Latest on the Mumbai bombings of 2008.
Brian Usher is photography consultant for The-Latest.Com. He is a highly experienced editorial and commercial photographer whose work has been published throughout the world, appearing in many well known magazines and newspapers. Brian has featured in several books and has been a writer for the Royal Photographic Society magazine.
Heidi Kingstone has spent time in Afghanistan reporting for a number of publications. Her work has appeared in the Financial Times, The Spectator, The Sunday Times and other international journals. She has also reported from places like Iraq, Rwanda, Lebanon, Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Kenya. Heidi is The-Latest's Editor at large.
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