Retailer Marks & Spencer has hit back at trade union accusations of “corporate bullying” after an employee was dismissed in an alleged whistle-blowing case.
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The unnamed employee is planning to speak at a press conference organised by the GMB union this Sunday (7 September), during the opening of the annual Trades Union Congress (TUC) conference in Brighton.
The worker, who had spent 25 years working for M&S, was dismissed earlier this week after revealing to the media that the UK retailer was considering making cuts to redundancy payments for its 70,000-strong workforce.
Describing this as “a gross act of corporate bullying”, GMB legal officer Maria Ludkin said: “M&S have shown that they are more concerned about maintaining a repressive regime for their staff than about promoting open discussion about the direction of the company and the way that the staff are treated.”
But an M&S spokesperson dismissed the idea of “whistle-blowing”, saying that there had been no wrong-doing by the company.
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By GlobalData“We never take a decision like this lightly,” she added. “We reached this decision because the individual deliberately leaked internal company information and made derogatory and speculative comments to the media – despite there being a variety of other internal routes available to address his concerns.
“We couldn’t be confident that the individual would not disclose internal company information in this way in the future.”
Meanwhile, the GMB voiced fears that the changes to redundancy pay, introduced on 1 September, meant that M&S was planning to cut jobs. “Why else would they cut their existing policy if they did not intend to use it?” general secretary Paul Kenny told the Press Association.
The M&S spokesperson said: “We are surprised and disappointed by the actions and allegations the GMB has made about the dismissal of one of our employees. Despite claims that they plan to appeal on behalf of the individual, they seem more concerned about conducting the case through the media to gain publicity for their own ends.”
