MP takes up the cause of Tesco call centre staff

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THE chief executive of supermarket giant Tesco has been challenged on the floor of the House of Commons to show greater care towards “devastated” people working at the customer operations centre in Cardiff, which is due to close with the loss of up to 1,100 jobs.

Cardiff North MP Anna McMorrin described how staff have been left “distraught” that their jobs are to go.

She told MPs how people were summoned to the top floor of the building on June 21 and told “that they would all be made redundant”.

The Labour MP said that some of those affected had worked there for more than 20 years, while in other cases there are “two or three members of the same family working there”.

She said that some employees “found out through social media that they’d lost their jobs”.

Cardiff Central MP Jo Stevens pointed to the pay packet of Tesco boss Dave Lewis.

She said: “In last year’s Tesco accounts the chief executive, Dave Lewis, was paid a £4.15m pay package of which £2.4m was bonus. [Do you] agree with me that he could have taken a little bit less and they could have kept a few more of those jobs?”

Ms McMorrin said: absolutely the case.”

She added: “[In] his desire for achieving more savings, Mr Lewis needs to understand he has an absolute responsibility to treat his employees fairly and with respect. He owes them a duty of care and he should listen to what staff are saying.”

DUP MP Jim Shannon offered his support, saying there was “something obscene about the loss of 1,100 jobs”.

Ms McMorrin, who was elected to the Commons for the first time last month, said: “They are utterly devastated and feeling let down by a company that some had dedicated their working lives to.”

She described how one employer said staff had felt like “one big family and took pride in coming to work” – but now feel as if they are being “dumped like an old pair of shoes after being promised a secure future”.

The MP added that some families “will be losing two, three and even four wages from their budgets”. “I think that is

Ms Stevens described the redundancies as the “largest single number of job losses that has been announced in Wales for a decade”.

She added: “One of the ways in which Tesco could assist the staff that they are making redundant is not to make them redundant six weeks before they qualify for their annual bonus payment.”

Conservative business minister Margot James said she was “very sympathetic” on this point, adding: “That does seem to me to add insult to injury and [the Welsh Secretary] has raised that very issue with the chief executive of Tesco.”

She said the Government’s “focus is to support all those affected and to get people back into work”.

Although she said she believed “Tesco made every effort to inform people on a one-to-one basis”, she said it was “quite appalling that some people found out about this on social media”.

A spokesman for Tesco said: “There was no easy way to break the difficult news of the proposed closure of our Maes-y-Coed Road site, but our Director of Customer Engagement Centres Rob Graham gathered colleagues together so that he could tell them in person.

“Since the announcement, our UK CEO Matt Davies has also visited the Customer Engagement Centre in Cardiff to speak to colleagues affected and to answer their questions.

“We have now held six meetings with Usdaw as part of the formal consultation. Our key focus throughout recent weeks has been on supporting our colleagues during this difficult time and keeping them updated as the consultation progresses,” added the spokesman.