blocked access [for staff] to the CWU Communication Workers Union website and a site the union runs [...]]]> The Labour Research Department (not a part of the Labour party), has reported in the May 2009 issue that the large mobile phone firm Carphone Warehouse has been sacking staff who join a trade union, and it has:

blocked access [for staff] to the CWU Communication Workers Union website and a site the union runs specifically for its Carphone Warehouse members, called carphoneworker. The site is part of the CWU’s efforts to build union organisation and keep workers informed at the company where it does not have recognition. The firm has announced more than 550 redundancies.

The company’s recent suspension of two union activists at the company’s plant in Wednesbury follows the dismissal of at least six other active members. A CWU spokeswoman said “It seems that every time someone is identified as a union rep they are sacked.”

Think long and hard where your next mobile phone or broadband are going to come from. Do you want to give a company that has refused for 20 years to recognise a trade union your money? The directors of Carphone Warehouse, including Charles Dunstone, built their company from a telephone sales outfit, relying intensively on hard-working, intelligent staff who believed in the company ethos. It’s easier to milk someone dry if they believe in you.

I worked for the chain in 1998/1999 – and was threatened with the sack if I joined the CWU. I was also threatened with the sack if I refused to opt out of the EU Working Time Directive. A little later, I was told that a timesheet showing (correctly) that the employer hadn’t given me the opportunity to take breaks during a 12 hour shift in the Harrod’s department store, had to be falsified, or I’d be sacked… you get the idea.

Obviously things haven’t changed, and the company is running scared because it knows that the conditions it enforces on its staff have in the past been rather inhumane.

We’re in a recession, we all need to spend our money wisely. Giving your hard earned money to a company which has such draconian policies is akin to giving your money to terrorists. You’re giving the employer free reign to run over the rights of the workers.