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Network Journal 2004 Issue 1 |
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Companies - news in brief
Tesco staff double their money in a staff saving scheme. Sainsbury and the Co-op try to increase their share of the convenience store, while stores use a loophole in the law to increase their store size. The home delivery market is growing at twice the rate of retail sales.
- Usdaw has received assurances from Boots that workers will be consulted over the transfer of 600 warehouse jobs in Nottingham to logistics company Unipart. While the transfer will create an additional 300 new jobs, Usdaw said the first priority must be to protect the terms and conditions of the existing 600 employees - around three-quarters of these 600 workers are members of Usdaw. The planned date for the transfer of the warehouse operation and employees to Unipart is 1st April 2004.
- Meanwhile Boots has announced large scale redundancies among managerial and clerical staff at its Nottingham head office site. Usdaw is in talks with the company over the proposed 900 job losses.
- Hundreds of warehouse workers at a Sainsbury's distribution centre in Merseyside have voted to accept a pay offer - bringing an end to industrial action at the site. The new pay rate is £7.60 per hour, linked to improved productivity at the centre. Further increases will follow should productivity continue to improve. The Haydock workers had staged four 24-hour strikes, in December 2003 and January 2004, after rejecting previous offers from Sainsbury's.
- Employment will rise by a quarter of a million in 2004, presenting a huge dilemma to UK companies already experiencing severe recruitment difficulties, says a new report.
- Thousands of Tesco staff have seen their money double after investing in a staff saving scheme. More than 45,000 staff collected a share of a £110 million windfall after investing in the three and five-year investments. Workers on the three-year scheme made a return of around 30 per cent on their investment.
- Sainsbury and the Co-op are locked in battle to increase their share of the convenience store sector by bidding for TM Group, owners of newsagent chains Martins and Forbuoys. Sainsbury, Britain's third largest supermarket chain, already owns 109 convenience stores under its 'Local' and 'Central' formats while the Co-op, the largest player in the convenience sector, is looking to build on its presence after the acquisition of the Alldays chain in 2002.
- The home delivery market is growing at twice the rate of retail sales, says a new report by retail consultancy group Verdict. The report found that the home delivery market grew by 7.3 per cent in 2003 compared to 3.7 per cent in retail sales. Verdict also found that the number of people using supermarket online services once a week soared to 23 per cent in 2003 from six per cent in 2001.
- Stores are using a loophole in the law to double the size of their premises by creating extra floor space without applying for planning permission, a report shows. Stores have either built on mezzanine style second floors or converted storage space to create extra shop floor space. Planning permission is not required because the buildings have not been physically changed from the outside.
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