Workers on the minimum wage at an Argos warehouse have been offered an 80p an hour pre-Christmas bonus – but only if they don’t take time off sick. In a move that one leading employment lawyer warned “would almost certainly amount to indirect disability discrimination”, temporary workers at the retailer’s Basildon depot have been told they will not receive an “uplift” if they call in ill once in any single week. “[The employer] would have difficulties if they did not look at the individual circumstances of workers with disabilities to see whether they should get the uplift. “Additional resource is at a premium in the run-up to Christmas so to ensure we attract, retain and increase the attendance of our temporary workers, we offer an attendance bonus of 80p per hour, which applies to all agency staff across all of our distribution centres. We take the treatment of all staff – whether directly employed by us or indirectly via a third party agency – extremely seriously.”

Source: The Guardian October 17, 2016 11:48 UTC