6 days Ago
Staff members at a supermarket have claimed there is a toxic working culture there. But Asda says specific details of the allegations have not been provided directly and incidents reported to them are investigated thoroughly. Almost 100 GMB Union members working at Asda in Battle Road, St Leonards, have made allegations concerning sexual discrimination, inappropriate conduct and inadequate support in a recent survey.
According to GMB Union, almost 43 per cent said that they have taken time off work for stress or mental health reasons, 55 per cent said that they do not feel supported by managers, 62 per cent reported that they were not confident to raise a grievance and 64 per cent do not believe that Asda are following their policies and procedures. Comments from the survey include members of staff alleging that they are “treated badly because they are women”, subjected to “verbal abuse with comments about appearance and age” and that they fear losing their jobs if they raise grievances. The union said that the survey was distributed after concerns were raised to GMB about a “toxic and terrifying” working culture at the store.
Other results from the survey allege that three per cent of staff have experienced sexual harassment, 30 per cent have experienced bullying, ten per cent have experienced sexual discrimination, three per cent have experienced racism and 26 per cent have experienced inappropriate conduct. READ MORE: Tributes pour in for ‘gracious’ and ‘upstanding’ victim in murder investigation Declan MacIntyre, GMB regional organiser, said: “The details from this anonymous staff survey are absolutely shocking. “Some of these concerns have already been raised at a high level in Asda, for example about the conduct of certain managers, but were not appropriately or proportionately dealt with.
“GMB members have clearly identified that they feel unable to safely report issues because of the failure to deal with them and concerns of revenge that they will face if they do. “A toxic culture is an understatement in my opinion. “Members are calling for action by Asda or they will be asking GMB to support members in taking action themselves.
” The Argus understands that the allegations had not been raised with Asda by the GMB Union directly. A spokesman for Asda said: "We expect all colleagues to treat each other with courtesy and respect and any instances where this doesn't happen in our stores are thoroughly investigated. “We have clear and well-established processes in place for colleagues and GMB representatives to raise concerns with us directly.
“These were not followed on this occasion and we have asked the GMB to provide us with specific details of these claims so we can look into them further.".
