The Guardian has an article with this heading today:
Let me be clear, I am not criticising what Boots is doing. But let me also be clear: Boots has been an industrial scale tax avoider, using interest charges that were incurred to buy the company and not to promote its business to massively reduce its UK corporation tax bills for the benefit of foreign owners.
Might I make the suggestion that if Boots had not done that and been part of a whole cultural movement that sought to undermine UK government revenues then we might not need food banks at all?
I think Boots might like to reflect a little harder on what corporate social responsibility really means. I can say for certain it is not asking customers to donate products bought at full price back to the company for it to benefit from a second time round.
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As someone married to a middle-manager at Boots, I can categorically tell you that’s not happening anytime soon, since the merger with WalGreens, conditions there are absolutely appalling, every single penny and perk is being squeezed in the name of “shareholder value” – morale is the lowest I’ve ever known it, the idea that they’re going to voluntarily be less amoral is depressingly laughable.
CV – thank you for that. Independent pharmicists here I come.
I need to take Warfarin and on number of occasions have found my presripton to be short. There was then an expose that this was being actively encouraged by Boots management.
Another great British name dragged into the gutter in the name of contemporary capitalism.
Worryingly the whole “Pharmacists pushing fake prescriptions to meet upper NHS limits because of pressure from management” happened BEFORE the merger that started things getting even worse.
What’s happening at Boots I suspect is typical of any massive multinational but it all just sounds so petty when hearing it from someone there, for example they’re no longer allowing previously encouraged “away days” where team leaders took their staff away somewhere different (escape room, go ape, or just a bar) to let off steam and bond, cost of around £2-500 per team per month, utter utter peanuts to such a large corporation but made such a difference to say ‘thank you’ to workers often putting in 10+ hours/week more than contracted hours to make sure targets were met, they’ll never even notice the fiscal saving but they’ve banned it anyway.
So as a result there’s huge (if anecdotal) reports of teams feeling overworked, underappreciated, ‘lifers’ leaving to seek different employment etc. My partner, who used to do 10 hours/day as her ‘standard’ day now is kind of coasting along as she feels “why bother?” and staff are seen by upper management as just replaceable.
In essence it feels like it’s been squeezed as hard as possible for a couple of years before the inevitable collapse, just another BHS.
Aditya Chakrabortty wrote about Boots (I always use a local chemist now, sorry CV, I do feel bad for the employees).
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/13/how-boots-went-rogue
Another entertaining article, but not really about Boots is
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/investing/buy-to-let/10865251/Former-Boots-boss-Buy-to-let-replaced-my-salary-in-four-years.html
If it is better for someone with skills and intelligence to become a rentier then politicians need to change the system. At least Osborne moved on this and the rentiers are squealing, but the part that is still missing is to address the housing scarcity.
Not really Boots anymore though..
Seems pretty standard self-financing purchase…buy it with money raised on the assets…hedge-fund Magic-money. I await the decision to crash the company. Doubtless the land assets have already been hived-off to another leech or two, and any pension fund drained to fund a few yachts elsewhere?
I am boycotting the shop. So many people don’t realise that what they think of as their “old trusted brand” no longer exists. On the subject of CSR we are finding it difficult to find large corporates who genuinely do it. They will only do schemes that affect financial gain.