Amazon staff get 18% rise to £9.50hr
MR LOOPHOLE BENDS IT FOR BECKHAM
PAY PACKAGE Workers AMAZON is raising the pay of its 37,000 UK workers saying it “has listened to its critics”.
Rates will rise 18% to £9.50 an hour and 28% in London to £10.50, it said.
The $1trillion firm’s boss Jeff Bezos, also revealing rises in the US, said: “We thought hard about what we wanted to do.”
But union GMB said it must act on “horrendous working conditions”, claiming some staff fell asleep through exhaustion.
TUC chief Frances O’Grady added: “Amazon must end practices that have seen hundreds of ambulances called to its UK warehouses.”
The online retailer has also been under fire over its tax bill which fell in the UK despite profits trebling.
DAVID Beckham has become the public face of a car company just days after he swerved a speeding conviction on a technicality.
He was clocked doing 59mph in a 40 zone but his lawyer, nicknamed Mr Loophole, got him off the charge because the penalty notice arrived a day late.
The former England football captain’s deal with Vietnamese car firm VinFast is thought to be worth over £1million.
Marcel Knobil, the founder of brand experts Superbrands, told the Mirror: “It’s very, very poor timing.
“The deal will have been signed before his speeding charge and I expect there would have been a lot of heated discussion as to whether to even go ahead with it after recent events.
“The firm has bitten the bullet but will have been extremely angry with the situation... I’d be very surprised if the endorsement was below £1million but the speeding issue has undermined the deal’s credibility.
“The stakes [of the speeding charge] were very high – and perhaps nobody realised how high...
“For all we know, if he had been found guilty of the speeding charge, it could have shut down this agreement.”
Mr Knobil added: “To a certain extent, he has always had a bit of a ‘man of the people’ image. The fact he hired an expensive lawyer to get him off the charge will have dented his popularity.
“He’s living the high life and using his privilege and, in many people’s eyes, PRETTY PENNY With Miss Vietnam CLEARED Mirror front page on Friday
dodging justice... I think future sponsors will think twice about their relationships with Beckham after this.”
Beckham – who pocketed millions as a player and continues to earn a fortune through endorsements – posed with Miss Vietnam, Tran Tieu Vy, yesterday at the Paris Motor Show launch of the VinFast luxury cars.
The company said: “The strategy was to show what it takes competing at the highest level internationally, and David Beckham seemed to fit the bill... The speeding case was a private matter.”
A spokesman for Beckham declined to comment. A smiling Beckham looked smug after the case against him was dismissed on Thursday.
He had admitted speeding in a Bentley in Paddington, West London.
But the dad-of-four swerved a conviction at Wimbledon magistrates court in South West London after the intervention of celebrity lawyer Nick Freeman.
It comes after Beckham, 43, sought tax relief by investing in the Ingenious film scheme, and by claiming non-domiciled status. The tax scheme counted as a “red flag” against him when he was put forward for a knighthood in 2013.
Emails leaked in 2017 revealed the retired footballer had told his publicist Simon Oliveira that he would not accept anything less than becoming a sir.
Former Manchester United and Real Madrid midfielder Beckham wrote: “Unless it’s a knighthood, f*** off.”