Iain Dalton, Usdaw Broad Left Secretary
Discount retail chain Poundland is facing administration, with a threat to around 600 stores and 11,000 jobs. This follows the company’s purchase last year, for a token figure of £1, by Gordon Brothers – a firm with a specialism in ‘restructuring’, taking on the company’s £30 million debts.
Gordon Brothers is seeking the maximum return for its investors, regardless of the impact on Poundland’s workers. To that end, it rejected a bid for the entire company from the Northern Ireland-based Martin Property Group (MPG). Three of Poundland’s independent directors who had been overseeing the potential sale resigned in protest. The deal would have meant MPG taking on only £15 million of the debts, with only a portion paid off upfront.
Gordon Brothers clearly believes it can extract more money by going into administration and breaking up the company, with a number of chains allegedly interested in taking on some stores. However, an anonymous ‘industry insider’ quoted in the Guardian suggests as many as 500 of the 600 stores could be left without a buyer. This follows the 130 stores and two distribution centres that closed as a result of Gordon Brothers’ takeover. Usdaw is recognised in two of Poundland’s distribution centres. The last figures given in Usdaw’s annual report for the 2025 Poundland pay review showed pay tracking 25p-an-hour above the basic adult minimum wage.
Usdaw should be organising meetings for members in Poundland to discuss how to save their jobs and protect their pay and conditions in any takeover. As an anonymous source said in the Guardian’s report about Gordon Brothers’ position: “The only thing that can change this is if they feel the moral or public relations duty”. Usdaw members in Poundland and beyond should make their voices heard.
In an Usdaw press release, general secretary Joanne Thomas said: “I am calling on the government to do everything it can to save 11,000 jobs… I urge the government to grant the retail sector the same priority and strategic support it provides to other vital industries.”
She should be more specific. The government must step in, and it shouldn’t bail out the profits of companies at our members’ expense. Unfortunately, Andy Burnham has said there’s a limit on what he can do. He’s only the prime minister! But there is a clear path he needs to take. If nationalisation is good enough for British Steel in Scunthorpe, it should be good enough to protect our members’ jobs too.
Usdaw passed a proposition calling “upon the Executive Council to raise the question of nationalisation of companies who go into administration or other situations where the jobs of our members and other retail, distributive and allied workers are under threat” at its 2017 ADM.
As that successful proposition went on to state: “Such nationalisations should not be of a top-down nature, but of one run on a democratic basis to allow staff representatives and the wider trade union movement to be involved in the revitalisation of these companies.”
