confused Sainsburys staff

[fiyah]

Hi there,

for nearly 3 years i have worked in the same store as a colleague. When i first started working there we were a Jacksons convenience store, Jacksons sold the majority of their stores to Sainsburys and we were then known as Sainsburys @ Jacksons (still on Jacksons contracts) In October 2007 we were told we would all be changing to Sainsburys Local stores and would be changing our contracts to Sainsburys contracts.

Every store had a visit from someone in HR and our contracts and employment changes were explained to us............this is where we are all confused!

We were told we would be no worse off with regard to pay and conditions, infact we would be better off as Sainsburys offer a bonus scheme if the company and store meet certain sales targets and other targets such as availability and mystery shopper results.

It was also explained to us that as Sainsburys do not pay extra for working bank holidays if your contracted day fell on a bank holiday you would receive extra days holiday entitlement for these bank holidays, if you actually worked the bank holiday you would get an extra days holiday and if you didnt work that day you would have 1 days holiday deducted from your holiday entitlement. Jacksons paid treble time for working bank holidays.

 

We have all now been told that sainsburys do not recognise bank holidays and as such there is no extra pay (which we had already been told) and no extra days holiday for working a bank holiday.

 

We called the area HRM into our store to explain why we were told one thing, i should add we were told about the extra days holiday then given a contract to sign which non of us have a copy of, and then the complete opposite is true.

 

They told us that at the time it was a bit of a rush to get all the old jacksons stores switched over to the new sainsburys contracts and things were a bit messy and information was not passed onto us correctly in some cases.

 

Now one of the reasons we are confused with what we have now been told is what staff are paid at Sainsburys mainchain stores, not the little local stores we work at, they DO get paid time and a half for working bank holidays, and they get weekend premiums, late night working premiums and sunday premium..........and this is not just staff who have worked for the company for a long time, this is staff who have worked for a year, this we know as we have a student who works at our store during term time then works at her store in Hereford during summer holidays and she has been working for less than a year at her store.

 

We feel like were being lied to day in day out and feel as tho weve been conned into signing these new contracts.

 

We are open everyday of the year apart from christmas day, mainchain dont open all these bank holidays, from 7am to 11pm. Staff morale is rock bottom and we are sometimes running the store with one member of management and 1/2 colleagues somedays because no one wants to do the overtime to cover holidays/sickness because they feel like they are being treated like crap by Sainsburys.

[BeauBrummie]

Ok far be for me to take on Sainburys HR but I do have a few pointers for you.

 

When Sainsbury's bought Jacksons all employees were protected by the legislation under TUPE (Transfers and Undertakings Regulations for Employment)

 

As you have stated you should be no worse off under the TUPE regs and you have a right to ensure you have continuation of service rights and all rates of pay etc.

 

This does not stop the new employer making changes to the contracts that they took over-----but---

 

In my view it should be done with consultation and agreement of the parties involved----you have no mention of this in your post. As a caviat to this, why have you not got a copy of your new Terms & Conditions of Employment?-----you have a right to one, and this is crucial to your issues.

 

Again in my view you seem to have been somewhat kept in the dark by mis-communication and poor HR Mangement---quite unproffessional for a large organisation.

 

As has been discusssed many times on this message board you have no right to extra pay or time off in lieu nor any bonus for working a Bank Holiday, these rights should have been picked up at the negotiation stage before implementing the new terms for the Jackson staff.

 

So I think you need to get hold of the new Terms & Condions that you signed and compare them with the rights you had under Jacksons. If there is a difference that materially affects your pay & conditions then you may well have a case if there was no negotiation and the terms were just steamrolled through. It may well be that the new terms were negotiated at a level of the company that you would not be privy to, but even so I think this has been very poorly handled by the HR Dept.

 

Hope this helps and good luck.

 

Beau