GMB members at a Topshop warehouse are set to walk out in anger at ‘workhouse conditions’. Comment from Doug Cooper, GMB organiser.

Staff at Spectrum for Arcadia, a division of the DHL Logistics Supply Chain in Leeds, will be downing tools following a dispute over pay. Protracted pay negotiations with the company have left GMB members dejected and feeling undervalued after their pay claim was thrown out by the company. GMB has now registered a trade dispute with Spectrum for Arcadia. Members in Leeds will be taking coordinated strike action with its sister site in Solihull on the 24th and 26th February.

A member of staff at the site, who wishes to remain anonymous, said: “Our reps have done everything they can to try to sort this out. We’ve never been a workplace that just pays the minimum pay and I’ve worked here for over 12 years. “Things are getting worse – you used to be one of the family if you got a job here. Now it feels like a workhouse back in the day.” Doug Cooper, GMB organiser for the Leeds site said:  “Our members working at Spectrum for Arcadia will not be used as kitchen utensils to fuel the greed of billionaire employer Sir Philip Green. They deserve better than a paltry statutory minimum rise.”