BFAWU statement on situation at Wetherspoons

We are hearing reports that Wetherspoons staff are having their discounted food whilst on shift reduced from 50% to 20% and are ‘compensating’ the 30% additional costs with ‘a wider selection’ of products that they have access to anyway and doesn’t in our opinion constitute a wider selection at all.

Whilst workers will still receive their 1 free meal on shift, reducing the discount on further purchases means many of them will now rely totally on that one free meal to get through their whole shift. They are unable to bring in their own food to heat up on their break allegedly due to cross contamination and allergen issues.

It feels to us that this is purely a cost-saving exercise, which penalises low paid, precarious workers, stripping back benefits to the bare minimum rather than rewarding them for the work they do.

We don’t think this is good enough, if Wetherspoons aren’t going to give staff facilities in which they can bring their own food in to heat it up, then they shouldn’t be taking away their ability to purchase discounted food and drink to supplement the one free meal they get on shift, even better pay them £15 an hour so they can afford to eat what they want to on their breaks!

This is happening at a time when the company has returned to profitability and is making 40million in pretax profit, yet instead of using that profit to reward the staff who make it, is focusing on making it more expensive for its workers to afford food on shift.

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