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A READER of The National has hailed a victory for “ordinary folk” after staff at a Scottish branch of an international supermarket chain were left without heating through the winter.
Graham Rae moved to Crosshouse, in Kilmarnock in November, and when he visited his local Spar store he found there was no heating and the shop was freezing.
Staff told him it had been off since February last year and they had been promised it would be fixed by January, but he said it was unpleasant enough to shop in – let alone work there.
Rae enailed the company pointing out that there had been a history of faults with heating at the shop, and the repairs had been put back for the third time to May.
“This is completely and utterly unacceptable,” he said. “I am only emailing on behalf of the women in question because as a member of the public, and a concerned human being, I cannot believe it, and I think it’s an absolutely disgusting way to treat your loyal and hard-working class Scottish female staff.
“This is not a pleasant – or even entirely safe – work environment, and the company should be ashamed of itself, having staff standing round in double layers of clothing during a freezing winter.
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“I was in there the other night when the temperature hovered round zero, and it was not pleasant to shop there for the brief time I was in, so I can only imagine what actually working there must be like.”
He added: “Why is this taking so long? Do you not care about working women? You have 13,501 stores worldwide, and £39.8 billion total sales. Growth was up 7.4% last year. Are you honestly telling me you can’t take a tiny sliver of this obscene profit to help make your staff comfortable, and to bolster your steadily-worsening reputation in this town?
“And bad reputations can go viral in no time. I can’t say I am impressed at all. So … what is the score here? Why the disgusting delays? I would very much like an answer.”
Rae, however, had neither a reply nor acknowledgement and contacted The National.
We eventually managed to get in touch with the Dutch multinational’s UK headquarters, and were told by a spokesperson: “We are aware of a complaint made regarding the heating situation in the Kilmarnock SPAR store and are working to rectify the situation.”
We relayed this to Rae, who was surprised by what he found when he returned to the Crosshouse store.
“I just went round there and there was a handyman attaching heaters around the shop,” he said.
“I think they have some problem with the actual heating system itself, but the timing on this just seems too neat.
“The heating is out for a year, I contact you, you contact them … and all of a sudden they are putting heating up? Seems like a job well done to me, at least it’s something.
“Those women deserve to work in comfortable conditions, standing serving people for hours in all weathers.”
He added: “It’s magic – a wee victory for the ordinary folk.”
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