I bank with the Co-op, shop with the Co-op and have a Co-op mortgage.
As a member of staff in a UK higher education institution (not this example, though) I’m entitled to an NUS Extra card which gives me an astonishing range of discounts at a number of major retailers. This includes 10% off at the Co-op. Until today I had only claimed a discount once. On that one occasion I didn’t feel great about it and decided that I’d rather give the Co-op the money than save it for myself.
Today, though, I got to the till and remembered the morning’s news that
“The embattled Co-operative Group, still reeling from a banking scandal and preparing to lay off up to 5,000 employees, faces a new storm over plans to pay its chief executive more than £3.5m in his first year in the job, while massively boosting the salaries and bonuses of other senior staff.”
and
“Salary consultants brought in by the Co-op based the proposed remuneration packages on comparisons with FTSE 30 and FTSE 100-listed companies of a similar size to the mutualised group that is owned by its 8 million members. But the huge salary increases are likely to be seen by some as at odds with the history of the co-operative movement and its traditionally egalitarian ethos.
“Under the proposals, Sutherland will be paid a base salary of £1.5m this year, plus a £1.5m retention payment. With pension contributions and other extras, such as compensation for buying him out of his previous contract, Sutherland will receive £3.66m this year. His predecessor, Peter Marks, received just over £1.3m last year.
“Richard Pennycook, the chief operating officer, will receive a £900,000 salary and a retention payment of £900,000. Six other executives will be paid salaries between £500,000 and £650,000 – and the same amount in retention. In the past, senior executives of the Co-op received between £200,000 and £400,000.
“It has also emerged that Rebecca Skitt, the Co-op’s chief human resources officer, who joined in February 2013, left last month with a proposed pay-off totalling more than £2m.”
at which point I got out my card and claimed my paltry £1.24.
Nobody – least of all a Co-op employee – should be getting that kind of money. The Co-op should shun that level of inequality. They should see through this kind of financial exsanguination – especially when they’re laying off the people who work at their farms and pharmacies.
And did I mention that I am not an effing charity?
I’m not dumping the Co-op but I do feel that they dumped me some time ago. My discount is going to make quite a lot of difference to me in the coming months and years. I should think the Co-op would be glad to have it, but it’s money they won’t get because they hired consultants from a financial tradition that has already got this country in trouble several times over, and then followed their recommendations to fleece me.
They badly need to get back to their mutual roots. They need to recognise the difference between greed and motivation.
Flesh is Grass 