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The delivery firm DPD has been accused of “revenge” sackings after workers spoke out against a plan to cut thousands of pounds from their earnings, including their Christmas bonus.
The company, which reported pre-tax profits of nearly £200m last year and plays a significant role in the festive rush to have gifts and parcels delivered, has even threatened to withhold money from some staff to pay for the cost of replacing them, the Guardian has learned.
DPD confirmed it had dismissed workers after an estimated 1,500 self-employed drivers chose not to take on any work for a three-day period in protest at the plans.
It emerged earlier this month that the company had told workers it planned to cut 65p from the rate it pays for most of its deliveries on 29 September.
Drivers said the cut, which came to as much as £25 a day, and the loss of a £500 Christmas bonus, was likely to add up to more than £6,000 a year for each worker – and as much as £8,000 for those who take on a lot more deliveries over Christmas.
Many drivers indicated they were choosing not to work for the company for three days. After a meeting with workers’ representatives, the firm agreed to defer the rate-cut until after Christmas, but insisted it would still be implemented. Within weeks of the meeting, drivers have said, management have started to move against people they deemed “ringleaders”.
“Now that we have shown them up publicly they’re just trying to assert dominance and trying to control the free will of drivers they don’t want to employ,” said one of those let go, Dean Hawkins.
He was involved in organising the action and was told by a DPD manager he had been fired for allegedly breaching a gagging clause in his contract. “It’s a revenge act to assert dominance for us humiliating them,” he said.
A DPD spokesperson said: “We can confirm that we have terminated our relationship with eight supplier companies following a breach of contract.”
DPD Group UK’s highest-earning director was paid nearly £1.5m, including bonuses, last year, representing a pay rise of more than £90,000 from 2023.
The eight cases will probably affect many more individual workers because DPD’s pool of self-employed drivers includes individual contractors and those who run fleets of vans for the company.
One of the latter group was Jose Alves, whose contracts were terminated when management said he had breached a clause prohibiting involvement in “any newsworthy event or story or anything which would or in [DPD’s] opinion could damage [the firm’s] interests or reputation or any part of [its] business”.
Alves has asked the firm to provide evidence, but thus far has received none.
He was also told that DPD reserved the right to keep some or all of the £16,000 in deposits he had handed over when his contracts started. DPD said it would have “incurred costs by spending time sharing with you the benefit of our knowledge, skill and experience”, and that it would “also spend time and money finding a replacement for you”. “If that happens, we may keep your deposit to cover these costs,” it said.
DPD said: “With any case of supplier breach of contract, it is our normal procedure to hold on to the deposit for up to 30 days to allow for vehicles to be returned and assessed for damage. Unless there is damage, we would expect to return the deposit in full and within the agreed timescale.”
Hawkins was also dismissed over claims he had breached a gagging clause. He was shown a Facebook post from around the time the rate cuts emerged, in which he wrote: “Any threats of a strike or legal action, you’re terminated, DPD don’t allow you to stand up for yourself or have a voice … This is why so many drivers across the UK are looking into striking, because God forbid we ask for a fair wage to support out families.”
He said his dismissal was unfair because it was DPD – not he – who created the “newsworthy event” and that if DPD’s interests or reputation had been damaged it was the firm’s own actions that were responsible.
Asked if this was a reasonable view to take, the leading employment law barrister and Labour peer John Hendy KC said: “Absolutely. It’s their action which has damaged their reputation, not the action of those who’ve reports of it.”
Hendy called for a change in the law to protect drivers such as those fired by DPD. “The protection against dismissal or detriment for trade union activities only applies to the activities of an independent trade union,” he said, adding that the drivers may not enjoy such a status.
“This reveals a deficiency in the existing legislation which the government should consider fulfilling. Penalising workers for making representations against detrimental changes to their terms and conditions is, quite simply, outrageous. It should be unlawful.”
