William Hill Staff Deserve Better Just like the other "Big Three" bookies, William Hill seems to have forgotten about its hard working staff in the constant quest for bigger and bigger profits.
Community Union members at William Hill have been contacting us over the proposed “restructuring” of the company’s staffing model and over what many managers are now referring to as a “wage freeze”. Members are extremely concerned over the uncertainty surrounding the changes and they are worried that all this will once
William Hill will compare the salaries of shop staff with other ‘retail’ outlets. Betting shop workers have often been told that when it comes to working hours they’re classed as working in the leisure industry, when it comes to handling cash and other banking responsibilities they’re classed as working in finance and when it comes to wages they’re retail! All this begs the question against which retailers will William Hill compare staff salaries with? Community believes that those doing the comparing need to take into account the following:
- How many retail outlets are so cash dependent and as vulnerable to robbery as bookmakers and in how many are staff threatened, assaulted and subjected to abuse on a daily basis?
- In how many retailers are staff forced to work on their own for long periods?
- In how many retailers do staff mange premises often with a £10 million plus turnover?
Amazingly, the red-ringing of salaries will take place while the company readily admits that “productivity has increased”. Remember that William Hill’s profits have increased nearly four-fold in six years as betting shop workers have had to work more unsocial hours and have demonstrated incredible flexibility in terms of longer opening hours. Are these proposed changes really anyway to thank staff for their efforts?
As cashiers hours are cut staff will now find themselves lone person working for longer and on more occasions. Single manning, planned or otherwise is unacceptable. It compromises staff safety and places workers under sometimes intolerable pressure. It may well be impossible to take the breaks you are entitled to under law and even taking a toilet break can be impossible when working on your own. Furthermore, single staffing does nothing to contribute to a safe working environment. According to the MET police since 2005 there has been a near 40% increase in robberies of betting shops in Greater London. In the city of Glasgow meanwhile there has been a near 300% increase in assaults and robberies in the city’s betting shops during the same period. Given this, does anyone really believe that more single staffing will make shops safer?
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