Oxford JJB Sports picket

JJB Sports Picket - December 2006

Oxford Respect members helped to organise a successful picket of JJB sports earlier this month, calling for the reinstatement of sacked union steward Chris Riley.

Chris, a GMB activist was one of the leaders of the recent successful strike action over low pay at JJB Sports. His sacking is a blatant attack on Trade Union rights and is a case of millionaires flexing their muscles against working people.

The picket was held to support JJB workers and to highlight the injustice of low pay when it is the JJB workers who are making the profit pocketed by the millionaire owners.

The pay for a JJB Sports warehouse worker is about £200 per week gross. This is from a company with a gross turnover of £745 million and yearly profits of £34 million! Self styled ‘Mr. Wigan’, Dave Whelan who has a personal fortune of £200 million is reported to have intervened in the dispute and pulled the plug on a negotiated agreement over pay. He and is reported to have commented that equal pay was ‘the communist way – cuckoo land’.

The tawdry pay offer was just 1p above the minimum wage.

For more info: http://www.respectcoalition.org/?ite=1259