It seems the so-called partner workers at the John Lewis and Waitrose Stores will be ''asked'' to cut their fellow workers jobs and conditions again just recently ''in the interests of modernisation and the commercial interests of the firm''. And to top that, this commercial model claims to be so popular that it's former 'boss' is nor aiming to be the next West Midlands Tory mayor and introduce it into more of the local Council's services and supply chain alongside competition with other charities and social enterprises competing to cut the Council's costs in the current Austere times!! Be warned!
See these news stories:
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/23/andy-street-john-lewis-is-successful-partly-because-of-its-model-west-midlands-mayor-election
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/23/john-lewis-to-cut-800-jobs
Man, there must be some heads
Man, there must be some heads spinning in the world of happy-feely leftist liberals types. Spiky, you should write up a blog about this.
So just to update this. The
So just to update this. The John Lewis 'Partnership' is not a 'workers co-op' but it's model of employee ownership has been lauded by UK establishment politicians including the Tories, LibDems and Labour as the 'human face' of capitalism. This Company however operating as it does in the UK retail sector is no more immune than all the others from the pressures of the market. Some time ago it closed it's old final salary pension scheme, has used a number of non-partnership ship outsourced suppliers (inc' some of those other criticised 'gig economy' exploiters) that it drives a hard bargain with, last year 'lost' a total of 2000 workers jobs, has just paid out the lowest staff bonus in years, and plans to cut more jobs including by more use of 'robotics' in it's head office. Not necessarily any worse than many other big retail sector employers but not in practice necessarily better either.
So Andy Street has just been
So Andy Street has just been elected by a small margin for the Tories, as against the Labour Party candidate, for the enhanced role of West Midlands Mayor. Will try to monitor any news stories for what follows in respect of the continuing cuts and privatisation agenda as it affects both Council workers and resident of the West Midlands.