Starbucks sink to new lows

The US coffee company, Starbucks, which is already under pressure for its tax affairs has now cut the rights to sick pay for its 7,000 UK workers. Starbucks was branded 'immoral' by MPs who heard that the company has used a range of legal tax-dodges to avoid paying corporation tax in the UK. Over the past 13 years it has paid £8.6 million on sales of £3.1 billion. It has now announced that workers will no longer be entitled to sick pay for their first day's sickness. Concerns have been raised that this will mean that workers will be more likely to come into work while ill with viral or bacterial infections that can be spread through touch or coughing, leading to an increase in possible contamination and an increase in infection of other workers and customers. In a blog, TUC Head of Organisation, Paul Nowak said that companies that treated their workers like this were also the ones more likely to fall down on other social responsibility issues such as tax-paying and the solution was to try to unionise the workforce. Martin Smith, national organiser of the GMB union, which represents some Starbucks workers said "The reaction is one of confusion and fear. On the removal of sick pay, do we really want our coffee to be made by someone struggling to work with a cold, because that is what will happen. It is not a good look for a top flight coffee maker."

• TUC blog