Black Marks

HAVING been a faithful customer of Marks & spencer my whole life, i encouraged my daughter, who is taking a gap year before commencing a Master’s degree, to take a part-time job with M&s to help fund her further studies.

she was given a temporary contract with designated hours, but has since found out that her hours are flexible and she has to work until closing time. This seems fair enough as the store stays open later and later leading up to Christmas to provide a service to Christmas shoppers.

however, what my daughter didn’t realise is that although temporary staff are allowed to stay at home on Christmas day and new Year’s day because the stores are closed, they have to make up their hours during that same week. This has meant my daughter being rostered to work until 9.45pm on new Year’s eve. There are no trains for her to get home and she isn’t being paid overtime for working these unsocial hours.

having seen its advertising campaign and read of the philosophy behind it, i’m very disappointed in M&s and its treatment of temporary staff, who earn only the minimum wage, whatever their shift patterns.

M&s director Patrick Bousquet-Chavanne has said of the advertising campaign: ‘Mrs Claus is the result of thousands of conversations that we had with our customers to understand what they want from M&s — which is warmth, empathy and a touch of humour presented in a modern and contemporary way.

‘she epitomises the huge efforts our customers put in to making the festive season special and represents the love and togetherness customers want to feel and see in abundance at Christmas.’

he clearly doesn’t spread much love and togetherness with the company’s temporary staff. JAYNE A. BUTTERWORTH,

address supplied.