Petition calls on M&S to scrap pay cuts plan

A MARKS & Spencer employee’s 70,000-strong petition calling on the high street giant to scrap proposed pay cuts to offset the cost of the National Living Wage will be delivered this week.

The woman, who set up a Change.org petition under the name Kate Simpson after a near 43-year career with the retailer, said plans to cut extra pay for working unsociable hours targeted long-serving employees and would see 11,000 staff lose up to £6,000 a year. The petition will be delivered to M&S’s flagship Marble Arch store on London’s Oxford Street tomorrow.

M&S, which employs 69,000 store staff, said in May that the introduction of the National Living Wage had prompted a wages review, with plans to increase the base rate for qualified customer assistants to £8.50 an hour outside London and £9.65 for those in Greater London from April.

But it also announced changes to so-called premium payments for Sundays and unsociable hours, which will see it axe extra pay for Sunday shifts and introduce a flat rate for bank holidays. It will also introduce a standard rate for shifts between 10pm and 6am, at £3 extra an hour for customer assistants.

“Kate Simpson”, who is now in her 60s and started working for M&S when she was 18, wrote on Change.org: “Believe me, anybody who is standing on the till or working on the shop floor is feeling very despondent at the moment. They can’t believe a company they have given their life’s service to is taking a decision that will result in dramatic changes to lives and financial loss.”

A spokesman for M&S said about 90 per cent of staff would be better off under the plans, adding it would “reward our people in a fair and consistent way”.