I’m suing Asda after losing my job over the new contract – it isn’t worth the paper it’s written on ‘Contract 6 is indenture, not employment’

Duncan Carson, 51, worked as a baker for Asda for 13 years. When he was told he’d have to sign Contract 6 (a new contract which means workers won’t be paid for lunch breaks and will lose some of their bank holidays) or he would lose his job, he refused. Now, he intends to take legal action against Asda.

When I started at Asda thirteen years ago, it was just meant to be a job, but I found I quite like it there. I loved being a baker, and it feels like a decent enough way to earn a living. You’re giving the masses bread, and I used to joke it’s something Jesus would approve of. We had a good team, and there was good camaraderie in the team. In fact, I liked it so much I thought I would see my working days out there.

Sign or be sacked

I worked in Asda Wolstanton, in Newcastle-under-Lyme, in Stoke on Trent, which is the place everyone gets mixed up with Newcastle upon Tyne. It was near to home, where I live with my partner, who has got a girl, and our border collie rescue dog, who has a heart of gold. My two girls are away at uni. It was a nice set up, and offered us all some security as a family.

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According to my colleagues, things had started deteriorating at Asda before I even got there. Walmart bought Asda in 1999, and it was clear they got an annual fee from Asda, and didn’t care about how the business was run, as long as they got that fee. An American business attitude to employment law is never a good sign – we have employment law, and they don’t. But just because you’re owned by an American company, it doesn’t mean you can ignore employment law here.

It started when the staff canteen was shut down in 2014. As a baker, I’d start my shift at 5am, so I’d rely on the canteen to get a hot meal for breakfast. On the night shift too, we used to be able to get a meal. But Asda told us it was costing them £9m. That year, Asda made a £718.6m profit, 5 per cent higher than the year before. Hand over fist, they were still making money, but they scrapped it regardless.

Asda’s drive to keep prices down and share prices up mean everyone’s doing okay apart from the staff, who are getting squeezed. People are called onto the tills constantly, because there aren’t enough staff to attend to the queues of customers, and when they help out, they’re still expected to get their own job finished. Now, they’ll have to do this any hour the company deems fit.

‘Contract 6 is indenture, not employment’

Two years ago, Asda introduced the contract colloquially known as contract 6, because it’s the sixth contract of employment. I started my job on contract 2, and every time there’s a new contract, conditions have got worse. In this one, there was a greater requirement to work bank holidays and be more flexible, but as far as I’m concerned, flexibility usually goes both ways.

All over the walls, it said it was our choice to be moved onto the contract, and no-one would be forced onto it. But around spring time this year, Asda decided everyone was going to be moved onto it. I liked Asda because there was a sense of trust, like their should be between their employer and employee. If you work hard, you’re honest, and give your best to the company, but they can’t respect you enough to stick to a promise, that mutual agreement has stopped. Where is the choice in that?

Contract 6 is completely inflexible. Staff are forced to work any bank holiday of the company’s choosing, and will no longer be paid for their breaks. But the biggest issue for people, I think, is the inflexibility. Staff working day shifts are expected to make themselves available, in my case, from 5am until midnight, every day, for a shift. But in my case, the wage would go up to £9 something per hour. In 2020, the minimum wage will rise to that anyhow. I felt like they thought we were stupid.

Understandably, there was a lot of noise about it. I was a shop steward, so I listened to people’s problems and presented them during the consultation, where there was supposedly discussion around the contract. People were worried about who would look after their kids if they were called into work, or who would look after their frail relative if they were forced to come in. Others, and rightly so, were worried about having a life outside of work. Contract 6 is indenture, not employment.

I don’t know anybody who voluntarily signed contract 6, but there’s ways to get staff onto it. If anybody asked to change hours or moved department, they’d be forced onto the contract because it’s technically a change in their employment. All Asda said about choice ground to a halt when the managers told us the latest development: sign Contract 6, or lose your job.

The only honest answer we got out of the talks was from an embarrassed manager, who told worried staff “Asda don’t care about you, Asda only cares about Asda.”

‘If they can just tear up my contract, how can I trust them when I sign the new one?’

Asda are acting as though there aren’t any employment laws. When they told me I had to sign up or leave, I said I’m out. If they’ve changed the contract before, when they said they wouldn’t, then a contract isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. Telling people they have to sign something whether they like it or not is no choice. For me, it’s Asda saying we own you, and we will tell you when we don’t need you. You have to be prepared to work for us any time.

At the moment, it says you get four week’s notice of the change. But what’s to stop them reducing that notice period to four weeks, then to three, until there’s no notice left? If they can just tear up my contract, how can I trust them when I sign the new one?

I was a shop steward, and attended more than 300 meetings about the new contract. People were so terrified they signed up to keep their jobs. When the last consultation went through – and to call it a consultation when we didn’t have any of our questions answered is worth noting – all of our staff were given a copy of the new contract to sign saying they’d be dismissed on 2 November.

In the last week, 68 people still were not signed up to the contract in our store. I asked them not sign it until the last minute, just to keep the pressure on. They thought Asda would change their mind, but they didn’t. And now my job has gone.

‘A contract is an agreement between two parties’

I am taking legal action against Asda because a contract is an agreement between the two parties. If one person can change that, it’s not a contract. We have employment law in this country, and I can’t get sacked unless I’ve been found to have done something wrong.

The people making the big decisions at the top of the company don’t see the human cost. They’re the ones handing out the notice letters to people who won’t sign the contracts, seeing how terrified people are about finding another job. They don’t understand that some people are working for Asda alongside two other jobs, and relied on their set hours to get by and do something else. Contract 6 is about putting profit before people.

Shop elsewhere, because the only thing Asda understands is the bottom line. Contract 6 was made on the back of profitability, and my job is gone because they simply want to make more money.

An Asda spokesperson said: “Following a robust, fair and extensive consultation process, which started in April, we’re pleased that almost 120,000 of our retail colleagues are now working on the same contract, with the same terms and conditions and the same enhanced benefits package, including an increased hourly rate. During the collective consultation process, which included the GMB union, we extended the consultation time, documented and answered every question raised, and made a number of changes to the original proposals.

“This contract is about fairness and consistency for all our colleagues, is an investment in pay of more than £80m and moves us in line with our competitors, who have all had this level of flexibility in their contracts for some time. We have always been clear that we understand people have responsibilities outside of work and we will always help them to balance these with their work life; we will not be asking them to constantly move the time they work, their days or departments.

“We do not want anyone to leave us as a result of this necessary change and so we have written to the 250 colleagues who have not signed the contract to offer a little more time to sign up and continue to work with us, should they wish. Whilst retail as a whole is under continued pressure, we will do all we can to ensure we have a sustainable business for our customers, our colleagues and the communities we serve.”