No minimum wage for me! Sports Direct boss pulls out wad of £50s
tRYinG to show he is one of the workers, billionaire Mike ashley lets himself be searched like the rest of his sports Direct staff.
Unfortunately the tycoon’s stunt backfired yesterday. For unlike his workers on the minimum wage, as Mr ashley emptied his pockets he pulled out a huge wad of £50 notes.
attempting to laugh it off as he put the rolled-up notes in a tray, the 51-year- old joked he had ‘been to the casino’.
Mr ashley was explaining how search procedures had been changed at his firm’s HQ in shirebrook, Derbyshire, which has been likened by a committee of Mps to a Victorian workhouse. previously thousands of lowpaid staff had to wait in their own time to be searched at the end of a shift.
Mr ashley said checks were now carried out at random on ‘only 5 or 10 per cent’ of workers. He took shareholders and journalists around the sprawling site at the firm’s aGM.
after being asked three times to apologise for the previous ‘workhouse’ conditions at shirebrook, he said: ‘Of course i’m sorry, why wouldn’t i be. i didn’t knowingly do it badly and i certainly didn’t do it deliberately.’
Mr ashley said he scrapped the rule that everyone was searched as they left after seeing the queues in December. .
sports Direct admitted that thousands of agency staff promised back pay to cover the company’s failure to provide minimum wage had still not received the money but said it was working to sort out payments. it has now increased wages to ‘15 to 20p’ above the national Living Wage hourly minimum, currently £7.20 for staff aged 25 and over.
the ‘six strikes and you’re out’ disciplinary procedure under which staff were given a ‘strike’ for spending too long in the toilet, excessive chatting or taking a day off sick is being suspended and some shop staff will be offered guaranteed hours instead of zerohours contracts. During the stormy aGM, Mr ashley was involved in an angry confrontation with trade unionists who had bought shares in order to attend.
He said he wanted to overhaul sports Direct to be like John Lewis, which regards staff as partners. He added: ‘i’ve nine years to turn sports Direct into a modern retailer. By then i’ll be 60 and i’ll give up.’
sports Direct shares fell 35.16p to 314.44p.