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Pret’s lovely staff are considering a strike, and it’s all your fault. All because you and your mates clubbed together to take advantage of the café chain’s £20 per month, five-coffees-a-day subscription thing. You, yes you, worked Pret’s saintly workers into the ground.
Only joking. Of course, Pret’s employees have far more to worry about than just overwork. Not only do the majority of Pret’s workers earn the minimum wage, £8.91 per hour, but benefit cuts introduced by the company during the pandemic have been made permanent.
In July last year, Pret announced that employees would – temporarily – not be paid for their breaks, and that their hourly ‘performance bonus’, in which Pret asks a random customer to judge employee standards, would be reduced from £1 an hour to 50p.
Pret has now told its employees that these changes are here to stay. According to the Guardian, over an eight-hour shift, this could amount to an 11 percent pay cut for Pret’s workers.
During the pandemic, Pret’s business suffered from a lack of commuters and tourists in central London. The group permanently closed 74 outlets in the UK last year, though if you’re wondering why they still seem to be absolutely everywhere, around 373 still remain throughout the UK.
The bargainous coffee subscription has increased Pret employees’ workload, while the financial changes threaten to lower pay – in all, making Pret a significantly more stressful, less attractive place to work. Skinny dash extra-hot extra-wet oat-milk boo!
UPDATE
The Pretleteriat has availed, sort of. Pret has gone back on its cuts to the ‘performance bonus’, restoring it to £1 per hour. However, the company hasn’t reversed the decision to not pay for employees’ breaks… yet.