Sports Direct has confirmed its directly employed shop staff will be given the option of moving to a contract with a guaranteed 12 hours a week. Agency workers will not have the option of moving to the new contract.
Last month MPs published a highly critical report on Sports Directs and the employment agencies its uses to employee staff.
Today’s announcement is contained in a detailed report from Sports Direct, written by its solicitors Reynolds Porter Chamberlain (RPC).
RPC have been asked to perform a 360 degree review of all employment practices issues in Sports Direct including the employment model. The full RPC report runs to 40 pages.
Sports Direct’s Annual General Meeting of the shareholders is tomorrow.
Download the full RPC report on Sports Direct Employment Practices
Unite the Union Response
Unite assistant general secretary Steve Turner said: “We welcome the commitment by the Sports Direct board to work constructively with Unite to bring about real change” but went on to say “While the report marks significant progress, not least the eradication of zero hour contracts in the stores and the six strikes and you are out system, Unite will be asking the board to go further and faster in a number areas when we engage with the company”.
Unite’s continued concerns included Sports Direct’s use of the two employment agencies criticised by MPs, which supply over 3,400 workers to the Sports Direct Shirebrook warehouse.
Unite said “We therefore call on Sports Direct to reconsider its proposal to only move 10 agency workers a month onto direct, permanent contracts. At that rate it will take over 340 months or 28 years for the whole of the agency workforce at Shirebrook to be moved on to secure, direct contracts.”
Unite hoped the Sports Direct board would be “bolder in the coming months and put in place a framework agreement to move bigger numbers of agency workers into direct employment, as well eradicating the use of short hour contracts such as the annualised 336 hours contract currently in use at Shirebrook.”
