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Monisons drivers face pay cut or redundancy
Page 6
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Redundant Morrisons drivers are offered new, lower-paid jobs; some will be doing the same work for different operators. Bridget Carter reports.
DRIVERSAXED by supermarket chain Morrisons have shunned the chance to apply for otherjobs with the company which would give them reduced rates of pay.
As the Morrisons depots in Bristol, Kent and Cheshire close this month, almost 700 drivers will be hunting for jobs.
Brendan Kemp, union representative for the Aylesford. Kent depot, says new driving jobs on offer with Morrisons in Cheshire and Northamptonshire have worse rates of pay and conditions than their previous contracts.
The drivers being made redundant were on contracts with Safeway, the supermarket chain taken over by Morrisons in March 2004. Kemp says if drivers sign new contracts to work at the Morrisons depot in Burton Latimer, Northamptonshire — 130 miles from Kent— they will: • Lose out on redundancy payments • Earn £120 a week less • Be required to work early mornings • Be required to work three weekends out of five "To be quite honest, no one wants to move up to Burton Latimer," he says, adding that the mood at the depot is downcast:"Thev ] the drivers] thought it was a job until retirement. Now it's all gone.
Kemp says most drivers are reluctant to leave Kent, creating a glut of drivers in the county.
About 20 of the 200 drivers made redundant at Aylesford have found new jobs.; at Bristol a handful of drivers have taken jobs as delivery drivers for a local bakery.
On Sunday 87 drivers finished working at the Aylesford depot. Another 100 will finish this weekend, leaving 20 to close the depot by 26 February.
At the Bristol depot, almost half of the 2(X) drivers finished last week; most of the remainder will finish on Friday. • Following the closure of Morisons' Aylesford depot, two hauliers have won distribution contrails with the supermarket chain.
Maidstone-based Alan Firmin and John Jempson & Sons, based in Rye, East Sussex, will be delivering groceries to four Morrisons supermarkets in the South-East.
Alan Firm in will service the supermarkets in Walderslade and Maidstone; Jempson will deliver lo Eastbourne and Hastings.
Paul Denver, operations manager at Alan Firmin, says the company has taken on several former Morrisons staff to work on the new contract.
Load hauliers like Alan Firm in had previously been unable to retain drivers in the face of lucrative contracts offered by Safeway. The closure of the Aylesford RDC means deliveries to supermarkets in the South-East will he handled from Morrisons' site in Burton Latimer, Northants.,