Pingo Doce supermarket chain hit the headlines last week and again for the wrong reasons – this time accused of having bosses that behave like “prison guards”, “threatening” staff if they don’t work to a “punishing” new overtime schedule. There is also the suggestion that paperwork is being “falsified” to reduce the 14-day period that staff have to say whether or not they agree to the company’s new terms.
Workers’ union CESP claims some Pingo Doce bosses have been “threatening workers with reprisals and transfers, transforming sections into prisons”.
At issue is a new policy on overtime which allows the company to increase workers’ timetables to up to 10 hours a day, say the union, with the ability to decide “unilaterally” how and when compensation is paid.
CESP says this effectively means the worker has to be constantly on call to the company, as well as prejudicing family life.
In a hard-hitting communiqué to its members, with graphic images of hands holding a clock and a wrist bound in chains, CESP write that the new policy translates into “working overtime forever”. It also accuses Pingo Doce of trying to force workers into accepting the policy and “falsifying dates on documents to reduce the 14-day period that they have to reply”.
CESP tells its workers that they should not accept any of Pingo Doce’s terms, nor should they justify their refusal. If threats ensue, CESP encourages its members to “make them public”.
Publishing the story, Expresso newspaper said questions to Pingo Doce had so far met with no response.
The food chain owned by the Jerónimo Martins group has been in and out of newspapers over the last 18 months – either for a sales campaign that was retrospectively deemed illegal and involved shoppers fighting over trolleys and stampeding through stores, or for unpopular tax-dodge moves which changed the company’s base from Portugal to Holland.
