"Sports Direct's Mike Ashley promises £10m to pay all staff above minimum wage", 31 Dec 2015

Sports Direct boss Mike Ashley has pledged to spend £10m on raising the pay of all the firm’s employees to above the minimum wage. The move follows a Guardian investigation that revealed how temporary warehouse workers at Britain’s biggest sportswear chain are subjected to an extraordinary regime of searches and surveillance. Undercover reporters also came up with evidence that thousands of workers were receiving effective hourly rates of pay below the minimum wage...It also comes shortly after the board announced Ashley would oversee a review of all agency worker terms and conditions at the company...However, the Unite union was not impressed. Its head of media and campaigns Alex Flynn said: “There’s a hint of a PR stunt about this – Mike Ashley the showman – when the fundamental problems still exist."...Flynn called on Sports Direct to become an accredited living wage employer, move its warehouse agency workers on to permanent contracts and to “look at the exploitative use of zero-hours contracts in the stores”...