Argos logistics workers are to strike for three weeks from tomorrow (15 August) as the two sides remain at loggerheads over a redundancy payments dispute.
Union Unite warned that deliveries to Argos customers will be severely hit by the strikes which will begin tomorrow and end on the morning of Tuesday 5 September.
The strike will affect five sites at Basildon in Essex, Bridgwater in Somerset, Castleford in West Yorkshire, Heywood in Greater Manchester and Barton Business Park in Burton-on-Trent.
The dispute, which began in March this year, centres around the transfer of nearly 500 workers from Argos’ Lutterworth distribution hub in Leicestershire to Wincanton Logistics in Kettering, Northamptonshire.
The union said Argos failed to give guarantees at its logistics sites that workers’ future terms and conditions will be safeguarded after the transfer.
Despite negotiations the two sides have failed to reach an agreement. Unite said the transfer was part of a cost-cutting agenda and accused supermarket giant Sainsbury’s, which owns Argos, of interfering in the dispute from behind the scenes.
Matt Draper, Unite national officer for road transport and logistics said: "There are 1,100 warehouse workers on strike across the five sites and I believe this will impact on Argos' deliveries, despite their use of agencies.
"We have made a little bit of progress on the talks but we still can't get sufficient guarantees from them but we are still prepared to carry on talking to Argos during the strike."
Draper denied Argos' claim that the union had made "unreasonable" demands. "It is not unreasonable to ask for guarantees for the workforce when a company moves a site thirty miles away. But we want to resolve this and are open to further dialogue."
An Argos spokeswoman said: “We’re disappointed with the union’s actions, which are based on unreasonable demands and are wholly unnecessary. Customers will not be impacted and should be reassured that full contingency plans are in place.”
Argos insisted that the dispute is not about pay and benefits or job losses and that Unite “has made a series of demands based on entirely theoretical scenarios” and that Argos has “ made several proposals” to try to resolve the dispute.
