Asda shop workers who don't like the terms of a new contract have been given leaflets offering "top tips" on finding a new job.
The GMB union said store workers who do not sign the new contract – called Contract 6 – have been told they will lose their jobs on November 3.
They said they have been handed leaflets with advice on visiting a job centre, asking family and friends if they know of jobs going elsewhere and getting an email address to use for applications.
Protests have been held outside Asda stores by workers worried about new contracts.
Many staff at the 海角视频’s second biggest supermarket chain are angry at the new terms and conditions the company is introducing, which they say will leave them worse off than before.
In all around 100,000 shop workers are affected by the change. Most have agreed to the new contract, though.
Asda said it did not want to lose staff, but anyone who does not sign up has been given 12 weeks notice – and can still change their minds.
The GMB said the new contracts will cut workers rights to chose where and when they work within a store; cut the number of antisocial hours that are eligible for higher pay; change holiday entitlement; and cut paid breaks, among other issues.
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Asda said the contract represents an investment of more than £80 million from the business – and was “not a cost-cutting exercise”.
Demonstrations have taken place in recent weeks up and down the country, and there was a small protest outside the big Asda superstore in Fosse Park, Leicester, this morning.
Another is planned for a Hyson Green Store in Nottingham on Thursday.
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Jim Clarke, a GMB organiser for Leicestershire, said: “Asda served notice on these employees in the spring and they are now on a 90 day notice period.
“If they do not sign the new contract they will be dismissed on November 3 – they either sign up to a new contract of employment or they are gone.
“People who have worked with Asda for 20 or 30 years are threatened with losing their jobs. This is not something that happens very often.”
He said changes included night-shift workers being told a premium paid for working between 10pm and 6am would now only apply from midnight to 5am.
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He said it would also be easier for management to chop and change where staff worked within a store.
Baker Rashi Chauhan has worked at Fosse Park for 37 years.
He said although his hourly pay would go up under the contract, paid tea breaks were being stopped.
He said: “I’ve been here almost four decades, and if I do not sign this I’m out. It’s take it or leave it.”
Latest Asda accounts showed the business made an operating profit of £803 million last year, up 9.2 per cent.
Annual turnover was just short of £23 billion.
Asda said an “overwhelming majority” of staff had signed the new contract, which would increase the base rate of pay for hourly-paid staff to £9 per hour, plus premiums such as “location weighting or bakery rate”, and maintain benefits including an annual bonus, share save scheme and staff discount.
It said the new deal meant the business could have the “right colleagues in the right place at the right time” and everyone doing the same job will be on the same contract.
Right now there are six contracts.
It said the contract had also been adapted after talks with the GMB.
In a statement Asda said: “Festive bank holidays – Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day – will remain voluntary and paid at double time.
“We have worked with colleague representative groups to produce guidance that colleagues will only be expected to work some, not all, of the remaining bank holidays.
“We do understand that the new flexibility we are asking for may give some colleagues cause for concern, but we are very mindful of the important commitments our colleagues have outside of work and take these very seriously.”
It said the 5 per cent of staff who would be financially worse off would get extra payments to top up wages until mid-2021.
All staff will continue to get guaranteed minimum hours, it said.
An Asda spokesperson said while they appreciated some colleagues would find the changes unsettling, they did not want any to leave.
He said: “We understand colleagues have commitments outside of work and will not be asking them to constantly move the time they work, their days or departments.”