“Many distribution workers earn as little as £17,000 a year

Sorry but thats not all that bad for that line of work. When i started reading this i thought poor buggers must be on £12k or something.

Get back to work, you lazy buggers.

I agree, it's not like they have to think for a living.

So how do I get a job there?

Crazy.... 17k and they are still striking. Thats a good salary for that position. And the reports say some people as low as 17k, indicating many more people are on more than this.

Argos could employ agency staff for less than this. If employment law was no so bloody strict i would not be surprised to see argos going down that avenue.

17k is a good wage for that job (and I have done it!)! If anyone should be complaining about low pay for hard work it should be Games Testers(which I have also done)!

Maybe they can use the free time to figure out where stock should be in the back of the store!

“Many distribution workers earn as little as £17,000 a year for doing back-breaking, essential work for this company. A below inflation wage offer is a pay cut and this is totally unacceptable to our members. They are already struggling to keep up with rising food and energy costs."

Believe it or not, rising costs is effecting everyone and some people are getting 0% pay rises. Very very few are getting more then inflation rises.

as a jobless person i am appalled by all these scum bags striking! if you dont like it..quit and i'll have your job you lazy, greedy bastards lol

I wish I was on £17k!!!

I run a database, provide tech support to over 50 people, and generate reports, and I am on £16k. They get more than me for moving a bunch of boxes about??

These muppets are being over paid by at least £5,500 sack the lot of them

This report makes my blood boil, striking is bad enough when it is for a legit reason, but these guys are taking the piss. To strike on that salary for that menial job is crazy. As people have said in preivous posts if i was argos i would take on agency staff from now on and sod the lazy buggers they have there already

"As little as £17,000" :O

And they want more money for what? lifting boxes? wtf?

Its says they rejected a 4 percent payrise in one part then it says this is below inflation its news to me that inflation is not at 4 percent. Hello the country in going into recession they should be thankful that they have a job let alone being offered above inflation pay risewhich will help push inflation even further.

when a company makes 16% "profit"(£400million extra) in the last financial year and it's financial manager recieves a 100% pay rise from £400,000 to £800,000 then you would expect them to reward it's lower paid workers in some form.
By not giving bonuses of thousands of pounds to it's manual workers but then giving them to it's managment only upsets those who need money the most.
To then offer 4.0% with sickness benefits cut isnt really sharing in it's success is it?

btw the Retail Prices Index used for pay negotiations is 4.3%

For the record,I am an Argos worker.The dispute is NOT solely about money.Argos want to introduce Conditions which are break our Contract Of Employment regarding Sick pay,Monthly pay without any recompense,,Attendance benefits and Annualized hours.So dont think we're greedy.Argos made £435m last year and say they cant afford to pay the increases.Get ALL the facts first before making judgements

I work at Argos and have yet to talk to anyone who would not accept the companies offer of 3.8% but we are not being given the chance by the union to vote to accept it.

I am also employed by Argos and i have to agree that union have not been forthcoming in all the offers that have been made to their employees it seems that they and Argos are using the employees in some type of power struggle for which the staff are paying for with increased bills and fuel charges but no rise in pay. i will leave you with this thought the leader ot the unite union is due to retire soon and the two people who could suceed him are the two who are involved with the Argos dispute and the Shell tanker drivers dispute of which they managed to get a good pay deal strange isnt it?

I would like to reiterate the point that this dispute is no longer just about financial gain!! Argos has attached many terms & condition changes to the pay proposal - effectively breaching the current T&C's. As most of you will be fully aware; if you were to breach your T&C's you would be liable to face disciplinary action. Argos want these changes to save thousands of pounds and the staff are not willing to move to worse T&C's for nothing. How many of you would truly be happy to lose sick benefits, moved onto flexible hours (argos decide when you work) or be forced onto monthly pay which could leave staff with out pay for up to 3 weeks.
If you look solely from a salary perspective £17,000 does look quite good. However factor in alternating shift patterns, working sundays, 6 day working for part of the year and working the bank holidays - the equivalent salary (9-5 mon-fri) is closer to £14,000 mark. Hardly ground breaking is it?
Again see the bigger picture - percentage figures are misleading at the best of times.

i also am an argos employee, and, i agree, 17k does sound quite good, but for the reasons pointed out above it isnt really. the industrial action is needed so argos can see that they cannot just walk all over their staff and change fundamental parts of the contract without any recompense. And by the way lenny, as it seems that you dont agree with all this commotion, i take it you have taken the company up on their offer of switching over to monthly pay already.

Argos give workers a poor wage. I work in the warehouse where we only earn £5.61 an hour for a huge amount of manual labour. Not to mention that for working 8.5 hours we are only given a 30min break (15min unpaid).
There is a lot that argos need to sort out!

in answer to phattkev you are correct in the asumption that i have changed over to monthly pay as this suits my needs and it is inevitable that they will change to monthly pay regardless of their employees wishes you are correct about changing peoples contracts and argos should be offering a substantial amount to do this however most of the colleagues i work with see this as separate issue which could and should have been dealt with on its own i understand that both the management and the union are both saying they want to resolve this by talking but no one seems to be saying anything talk about being between a rock and a hard place!

Don't know where GEOFF get's his info from but the £17000 IS FOR THE AM SHIFT! (with no sundays) if you do rotating ****s this rises to £18500, permanent PM £19500, nightshift its £21500 so please GEOFF get your facts correct before you spout off. PS I really do work at one of the warehouses and know the full facts.

Load of bull - it sounds like you are one of the lucky people who DO NOT work at one of our newer underfunded warehouses. Without being to bold, may I suggest you and your collegues request a pay cut and ask management to transfer the additional funds to those who are worse off than yourself. It would nice if everbody were paid the same wage for the same job wouldn't it!!!!!
Anyway this is going off track - It's Argos which deserve our attention, support all the staff who are fighting for their rights today.

ok listen to this. they are not striking for the pay rise offer they recieved they are striking because of the strings attached the pay offer!
they are not being greedy they dont want the strings with the deal

ok listen to this. they are not striking for the pay rise offer they recieved they are striking because of the strings attached the pay offer!

they are not being greedy they dont want the strings with the deal

when we were balloted for the pay deal i accepted the deal but the majority voted against so with a heavy heart i had to join my colleagues and strike as we all must support each other at this most trying of times otherwise something of more importance could come under attack like the final salary pension which i am lucky to be in as i have been with argos for ten years in response to load of bull and geoff instead of a standard wage through distribution each warehouse has its own salary and hours of which some are better than others this is one problem which needs to be resolved so everyone can sing from the same hymn sheet

Argos do not employ staff directly, you have to go through the agency system first, and that can take 2 to 3 years.before you are accepted if up to their working standard.
Working in the warehouse is not easy,its hard work and somedays you can walk 5 miles in one I know I have done it . I think they deserve the pay rise,

It seems these comments fall into 2 catorgories>Those who work for Argos and know the real issues,the strings this pay offer had ,and those who dont work for Argos who just see 4% for '''moving boxes'' and dont know the facts or the obscene profits Argos make and decided to greedily keep to themselves.
Thank You to all those who supported us..especially Wincanton drivers!

i keep reading all the comments about gready strikers from people who voted against it these people walked through our picket lines so as not to lose any pay but expect to get any benefits we win these are the real scum bags in this dispute

People like you disgust me, the union have used bullying, intimidation and harassment on their own members to get what they want.Why? Because their too stupid to get what they want any other way.

The people at the head of the union are paid huge salaries, drive company cars and have all their expenses paid, and the best they can come up with is for us to go on strike and lose money. That is not good value for money.

Rod i think your talking out of your arse, the staff where i work have totaly supported the strike, we have more union members now than we ever had, new members people rejoining and at last thursdays strike we had non union workers on the picket line supporting us, once again i will state the only scum bags in this dispute are the scabs who crossed the picket line purely for financial reasons mainly not to lose a days pay and to still gain any extra payments the strikers win, also is LENNY the same LENNY that crossed our picket line.

After three postal ballots and now a paper ballot at work, 95% of union members vote to continue with the strike, ENOUGH SAID.

In answer to striker if you had taken the time to read my last comment properly you would have noticed that i did not cross the picket lines even if i didnt agree with the all the reasons for striking the union is only as strong as its members and if we do not make a stand together then we will fall apart the main bugbear that i have is how can we stand on an even playing field when some do less annual hours and get better payed for doing the same job

lenny i totaly agree with you on the annual hours, but the fact is we voted to take the extra hours on to push our wages up, the fact is Argos will not give us a descent pay rise with out getting some thing back, for us to reduce our hours Argos will expect something in return.

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