Major UK chain goes bust with thousands of workers set for £200 payment
Thousands of ex-Wilko workers are being handed £2million in cash after the chain collapsed into administration. The GMB union said a judgement handed down by the Employment Tribunal ruled that Wilko had failed to properly consult with workers prior to going bust in 2023.
Around 9,000 former staff who worked in a store with 20 or more people will get four days' pay while roughly 1,100 who worked in a distribution centre or support centre role will get 13 days' pay, the union said.
David Bartlett, former Wilko worker and GMB rep, said: 'It has been a long, hard slog getting this money – the very least Wilko workers deserve after the way they were treated.
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'In no way will this make up for the stress and anxiety they faced during those dark days in 2023. But GMB hopes it will give them a much-needed boost as they move on with their new lives and careers.'
Workers can expect a payout of around £200 each. In 2023, HMV owner Doug Putman said his planned rescue of the retailer Wilko collapsed because 'everyone just got a little bit greedy' and was not thinking about the jobs that could have been saved.
Before former Wilko bosses will be grilled by MPs on the collapse of the chain, Putman said: 'I thought we did have a deal, we thought we would get that over the line.'
'They were super inflexible,' he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme, referring to the retailer's landlords and suppliers. 'For those four months, the amount of money that the companies wanted to charge made the Wilko deal literally impossible to do. And that was something that was found out really late in the game.'
He said one of the landlords, who hosted Wilko's servers in a tiny room, wanted to charge rent on the whole 1m sq ft facility for Putman to keep the computers.
'Everyone just got a little bit greedy and unfortunately weren't thinking about the 10,000-plus jobs that would have been saved and were only thinking about their little piece of it,' Putman said.
'PwC really wanted the deal, we wanted the deal, we had a deal. We had an agreement and these things kind of came out of the woodwork for both of us where we were both a bit stunned. So that was kind of the most unfortunate piece of the whole thing. Sometimes big companies just don't think an awful lot about the impacts to individuals.'
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