Sports Direct: Labour to demand government investigation

MPs to ask David Cameron for response from HMRC and health and safety executive, following Guardian revelations

A group of Labour MPs are to write to the prime minister to demand a cross-departmental investigation into the retailer Sports Direct, following revelations made by the Guardian last week.

The latest effort to increase the pressure on the retailer came as the Institute of Directors weighed into the debate over working practices there. Iain Wright MP, chair of the business, innovation and skills select committee, said he would be writing to the group’s billionaire founder, Mike Ashley, to discuss last week’s reports.

The new moves follow a Guardian investigation that revealed that thousands of Sports Direct workers were effectively receiving hourly rates of pay below the minimum wage.

Undercover reporters found that the retailer’s warehouse workers were subjected to an extraordinary regime of searches and surveillance, while local primary school teachers said pupils can remain in school while ill – and return home to empty houses – as parents working at Sports Direct are too frightened to take time off work. The reports have led to calls from both ends of the political spectrum for HM Revenue and Customs to investigate whether Sports Direct has breached national minimum wage legislation.

On Monday, Nick Boles, a minister of state at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS), was summoned to parliament to answer an urgent question on the topic filed by former shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna. At a parliamentary meeting of MPs affiliated with the union Unite on Wednesday, attended by shadow ministers Emily Thornberry and Gloria de Piero, the group pledged to “go above the likes of Nick Boles”.

Ian Mearns, the MP for Gateshead, said: “There is enough evidence to say that this needs an urgent response. If we write to different arms of the government separately, they will trade one off against the other.” He added that the group would ask David Cameron for a government response that included HMRC and the health and safety executive.
In September, a Freedom of Information request made by the BBC revealed that ambulances were called to Sports Direct’s headquarters more than 80 times in two years.

Sports Direct said: “Sports Direct believes it’s in compliance with minimum wage regulations and takes its responsibilities extremely seriously.” Temporary workers at Sports Direct’s Shirebrook warehouse are mostly hired through agencies, which technically employ the staff.

Meanwhile, the IoD stepped up its own campaign to force changes at Sports Direct, after last week calling the firm “a scar on British business”. In a letter to the Guardian, Oliver Parry, senior corporate governance adviser at the IoD, wrote: “This is not a simple question of more regulation – it must begin with the institutional investors, the large fund managers who have continually backed Sports Direct over the years, irrespective of their governance or working conditions. They must take the up the challenge and engage with the Sports Direct board. If they do not, a wholesale change in the behaviour of the largest sports retailer in the UK is very hard to imagine.”

Outside shareholders in Sports Direct have indicated that they will attempt to oust non-executives from the company’s board, a plan that looks more likely to succeed now that the company’s share price has taken a hit.

Since last week, when Sports Direct also reported disappointing trading figures, about £620m has been wiped off the company’s value, with shares down around 15%. With a 55% stake in the company, Ashley’s personal fortune has taken a hit of about £340m. The shares fell again on Wednesday, shedding 1.55% to close at 570.5p.

The slump means that if a FTSE 100 reshuffle took place now instead of a fortnight ago, then Sports Direct would be relegated from the blue chip index. The next reshuffle will take place in just under three months’ time.

Wright said: “I will certainly be writing to Mike Ashley to ask him to respond to these reports and explain how he and Sports Direct are fair and considerate employers who value workers who are employed in the company.

“There is a wider issue revealed by the Guardian’s high-quality reporting, in terms of what the future of work, employment contracts and workers’ rights mean in Britain in 2015. This issue is at the core of what we want to do with the select committee in this parliament, namely that we work towards ensuring that we have productive and innovative companies who value their staff. This is something we will want to come back to in the very near future.”

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http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/dec/16/sports-direct-labour-demand-government-investigation



They are going to have their work cut out making the Government investigate this

I wonder how much, if they donate to them, Sports Direct gives the Conservaties?

So is this Sports Direct that needs investigating or the Temp firms supplying employees on the wage issue?


Sports Direct said: “Sports Direct believes it’s in compliance with minimum wage regulations and takes its responsibilities extremely seriously.” Temporary workers at Sports Direct’s Shirebrook warehouse are mostly hired through agencies, which technically employ the staff.

It should be easy enough to check the wage issue either for Sports Direct or the Temp agencies. If they pay by the hour, the number of hours employees are being paid for will be on record. I find it hard to believe that a company like that would pay less than minimum wage, but if they are, they need to have the book thrown at them.

Working conditions are more difficult to investigate. I've read dreadful things about other companies with unrealistic expectations of employees too.

I think investigating why ambulances were called 80 times in 2 years would be a good start.

sassy wrote:I think investigating why ambulances were called 80 times in 2 years would be a good start.

That's not in the article so could you explain more?

Raggamuffin wrote:

sassy wrote:I think investigating why ambulances were called 80 times in 2 years would be a good start.

That's not in the article so could you explain more?

It is in the article and I made it bold

sassy wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

That's not in the article so could you explain more?

It is in the article and I made it bold

Soz. Yes, it would be interesting to know why.

By headquarters, do they mean a warehouse or office?

The only thing here would be training needed if as seen many calls were unecessary
6 were off site, so cannot really be attibuted to anything work related.
The 3 pregnancy ones would very much be worth further investigating as one indeed gave birth. Dog bite again off site.

“Life-threatening” conditions made up 36 of the calls for staff at the sports retailer’s offices at Shirebrook, Derbyshire, the request, made by the BBC’s Inside Out team, showed. Symptoms included chest pains, breathing problems, convulsions and strokes, the request to to East Midlands Ambulance Service found.
The ambulance service received three calls about women experiencing pregnancy difficulties, including one who gave birth in the site’s toilets. A further six were about car accidents on a road near the headquarters, and one was for a dog bite, the BBC said.

Why would ambulances be called to their headquarters for incidents which happened elsewhere?

I would say and guess I bet many of these ambulances were called out due to a a language barrier, of not being able to understand or measure the severity of the member of staffs illness. Again many warehouse staff are foriegn from agency firms.
So was this a case because the severity of a complaint cannot be ruled out that an ambulance was called.
This is procedure fore emergencies servies, if you cannot rule out a problem, an ambulance has to attend. I suspect this is more to do with communications and whether then rightly both Sports Direct and the agencies are employing people who's communication is poor

Raggamuffin wrote:Why would ambulances be called to their headquarters for incidents which happened elsewhere?

This would actually back part of the article as to why they would call the amubulance from the work.
If many were afraid to take time off, you would then come to the work to prove you were indeed injured.
So that part really is a tad worrying that people dragged themselves injured to work

It might just be people being cautious. If someone feels a bit faint, you wouldn't usually call an ambulance, but someone at work might do that just to be on the safe side.

“Life-threatening” conditions made up 36 of the calls for staff at the sports retailer’s offices at Shirebrook, Derbyshire, the request, made by the BBC’s Inside Out team, showed. Symptoms included chest pains, breathing problems, convulsions and strokes, the request to to East Midlands Ambulance Service found.


Even those 36 in 2 years is a very large number.  Why were so many people suffering from the above.  Stress could be a factor.

Richard The Lionheart wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:Why would ambulances be called to their headquarters for incidents which happened elsewhere?

This would actually back part of the article as to why they would call the amubulance from the work.
If many were afraid to take time off, you would then come to the work to prove you were indeed injured.
So that part really is a tad worrying that people dragged themselves injured.

The other question would be - do they get paid if they don't go to work? If not, they may well go into work even if they feel unwell or are injured. That wouldn't be the fault of the company unless there was a health and safety issue.

sassy wrote:“Life-threatening” conditions made up 36 of the calls for staff at the sports retailer’s offices at Shirebrook, Derbyshire, the request, made by the BBC’s Inside Out team, showed. Symptoms included chest pains, breathing problems, convulsions and strokes, the request to to East Midlands Ambulance Service found.


Even those 36 in 2 years is a very large number.  Why were so many people suffering from the above.  Stress could be a factor.

How many people work there though?

Again it could very well be a language issue, even more so if the calls is being placed third hand to the emergency services. Again a high proportion of temp staff in the UK are foreign. This would explain the high volume, if again they could not assertain the severity. If again an emergency condition cannot be rulled out, an ambulance has to attend.

What is needed from this is how many were discharged and what was diagnosed as the actual problem at the hospital. Again, most were symptoms, which again if the severity cannot be ruled out, then they have no choice but to send out an ambulance.

Temps do not generally get sick pay, I would think more this has a high turn over of staff, and dragging yourself into work sick or injured, is basically proving you have a legitimate reason to need the day off. If this is what is driving this, then yes Sports direct very much need investigating.

Richard The Lionheart wrote:What is needed from this is how many were discharged and what was diagnosed as the actual problem at the hospital. Again, most were symptoms, which again if the severity cannot be ruled out, then they have no choice but to send out an ambulance.

Temps do not generally get sick pay, I would think more this has a high turn over of staff, and dragging yourself into work sick or injured, is basically proving you have a legitimate reason to need the day off. If this is what is driving this, then yes Sports direct very much need investigating.

The waged staff might not get sick pay either.

I think the ambulance issue should be investigated, but it would need to be established if the illness or injury which led to the ambulances being called were caused by working conditions and not just because someone went into work by their own choice when they felt unwell.

Which is all why an enquiry is needed.

Who would investigate this? The issue of minimum wage and the ambulance issue are two separate things.

Perhaps you'd like to read the article?


A group of Labour MPs are to write to the prime minister to demand a cross-departmental investigation

sassy wrote:Perhaps you'd like to read the article?


A group of Labour MPs are to write to the prime minister to demand a cross-departmental investigation

Elf and safety then for the ambulance stuff. I wouldn't call that an Enquiry really.

Another company which has been discussed a few times is Amazon. I'm not going to accuse them of anything, but there have been allegations relating to them too.

It seems to be warehouse work which is in the firing line.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-25034598

Raggamuffin wrote:

sassy wrote:Perhaps you'd like to read the article?


A group of Labour MPs are to write to the prime minister to demand a cross-departmental investigation

Elf and safety then for the ambulance stuff. I wouldn't call that an Enquiry really.

What the hell are you talking about now:


A group of Labour MPs are to write to the prime minister to demand a cross-departmental investigation into the retailer Sports Direct, following revelations made by the Guardian last week.

For goodness sake Rags, you don't have to be spoonfed information that is already there surely!

sassy wrote:

Raggamuffin wrote:

Elf and safety then for the ambulance stuff. I wouldn't call that an Enquiry really.

What the hell are you talking about now:


A group of Labour MPs are to write to the prime minister to demand a cross-departmental investigation into the retailer Sports Direct, following revelations made by the Guardian last week.

For goodness sake Rags, you don't have to be spoonfed information that is already there surely!

Elf and Safety can investigate without a great big fuss. There's no need for so many people to get involved.

Of course if less than minimum wage has been paid, that could impact the amount of tax that workers should be paying, so HRMC will get involved with that.