Firms ‘forcing thousands of staff to breach the lockdown’
FIRMS which flout lockdown laws should be shut down, MPs said yesterday.
More than 1,000 worried workers complained that they were being forced to travel into warehouses, offices and shops, despite their jobs not being considered vital to tackling the outbreak.
And workers in essential jobs complained they were forced to work less than two metres apart, violating warnings about the importance of social distancing.
The 1,000 complaints received by MPs include those from estate agents, lawyers, travel agents and credit card company staff.
The parliamentary business committee published some of the most shocking, including a debt collection firm in Yorkshire which allegedly told its call centre staff to claim to be key workers so they could leave their children in school.
A BT call centre worker claimed they were ‘shoved in like sardines’ and a store manager at Sports Direct said they had been told they still had to go into shops to complete price changes and valuations, despite stores being closed.
Those who did not go in had been told they would not be paid, the manager told MPs.
An engineer at Sky said he was still visiting customers’ homes. ‘We can’t visit our own families, so why are we being asked to visit other people’s for the sake of entertainment?’ he said. Last night one of the UK’s biggest fashion chains, Next, closed its entire online operation after workers raised concerns at being asked to come in to warehouses.
Rachel Reeves, Labour MP and chairman of the business committee, said: ‘It’s clear that many businesses are still not doing the right thing.
‘This must change now. This is a health emergency – it cannot be business as usual.’
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell said: ‘They are putting all our lives at risk by their greed. The Government must act to shut them down.’ Boris Johnson has warned of ‘consequences’ for those companies which ignore lockdown measures.