Inside Planet Aid UK

Inside Planet Aid UK

 

By an anonymous former worker

 

August 2004

 

 

                    I began work at Planet Aid in March 1999 as a leaflet distributor - putting leaflets through people's doors

inviting clothes to be left outside for collection on a certain day.Birgit Soe ran the operation and I was soon invited to

spend each Tuesday with Graham Clarke(who had started just before me) touring the area in which I'd leafleted picking up the bags of clothes in a van.

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                Graham was nominally the warehouse manager,but was expected to share the manual work.In August 99 I became a full time worker as the number of clothing banks put out by the company had grown considerably.Clothing banks were emptied weekly on a regular day so set rounds were followed.      Now,James was employed to put the clothes into Capsacks - large sacks about 4ft high by 2ft diameter which contained  approx 140kg of clothes.Graham's wife was paid 50p per sack to sew up the filled sacks.At this time,James and myself received 4 per hour,Graham was on a salary of ,I believe,in the region of 12500 pa.

 

                   Birgit paid occasional visits to Sheffield from the midlands but the only other contact would be to Graham

via mobile phone.At this time we had a spacious warehouse unit and eventually the office and wash facilities were built into the same area.

 

                           In 2000,we were roped into working a full weekend to move the midlands part of the firm from a derelict barn to new premises in Corby,which would form the head office and the larger of the two depots.Corby would employ sorters to grade the clothes,drivers and general warehouse staff.Mr Graham Bail was put in charge of the new operation and  soon acquired a reputation for upsetting the workforce with his outdated  management ideas.

 

                          It became very obvious early on that the firm did not want to part with money easily.We were given no access to any petty cash - any expenses had to be borne by Graham and claimed back at the end of the month from Birgit.The firm left a collection of unpaid bills to various companies eg for stencils,for clothes collected,leaflets printed etc.I myself once paid out 10 to put diesel in the van because the local garage suspended our account until the bill was paid.Ironically,the firm set on an agent at this time charged with finding new sites for clothing banks,at 30 commission per site.Basically,he stayed a few months,found a few genuine sites but logged down a lot of bogus sites which we couldn't use.Birgit naively paid out in advance and he left with probably 2000 of company money  which they couldnt retrieve.

 

               Occasionally,groups of young people woud be sent to us to leaflet or repair containers from Winestead Hall.They were trying to raise the air fare to Africa after their studies ended.They were allocated just 3 per day to live on and often ended up sleeping in the warehouse.

 

                   The company also spent large sums taking management people on visits abroad,eg Graham Bail,Graham Clarke and others all accompanied Birgit to Zimbabwe in 2002,and to Tvind each year.

 

                 The main way the company raised money was by the sale of clothes to Eastern Europe.When the unit became full of sacks,an artic and trailer would arrive overland from Ukraine or Poland.Then James and myself would jump onto to the trailer and Graham would forklift the bags up to us - a very dodgy practise when 10 - 12 feetoff the ground trying to force in the final sacks.Birgit or Graham Bail would ring near the end to pressure us into forcing in extra bags,to the disgust of the foreign driver! This would take nearly all day,at the end the driver would be given an invoice to take back,usually to Garson & Shaw,Kievtrade or Darsan.Planet Aid charged around 400 per tonne for door to door collected clothes,around 350 for clothes bank stuff,so the final bill would be upwards of  6-7000 per load.

 

            The company continued to increase its clothing bank sites,by 2001 it was about 125,rising to almost 200 by 2002 .James left after about 6 months and Chris Fruin joined,so he and myself shared the clothes bank rounds and did occasional leafleting,although most door to door clothes now came from a sub contractor who was paid 200 per tonne of clothes.Chris Fruin eventually left for a variety of reasons,one being that Graham seemed to be doing less and less work in the warehouse.

 

                The company then employed Tony to find sites,who had around 35 years experience in sales and was prepared  to also work in the warehouse when not  out on the road .He was paid a small salary,found a good number of sites using his own contacts in the licensing trade and could often be found painting clothes banks in the warehouse.However,he was messed about so much by the company that he too resigned.

 

                  Wayne arrived next and was prepared to start work at 5am on a collection round,and to work well into the afternoon.Once again,the company lost a good employee because Graham Bail (now in full charge of operations) decided to try and pressure Wayne into emptying other clothing banks after his normal round.He took some time off sick in November 2002 and didnt return to the company.

 

                     Unbelievably,Planet Aid now refused to set on another worker - leaving Graham C. and myself to empty almost 200 banks,carry out maintenance and do loadings and swap containers from site to site. In May 2003 it was announced that an "area manager" would be joining us at Sheffield - stange when we really needed a driver or warehouseman.Cathy started on a decent salary but hardly seemed to spend any time on the premises.Fortunately,the company set on Matt,a hard working driver at the same time.We shared the clothing bank collections using 2 shifts,3am to 11 and 1pm till 9pm (mine).I was becoming increasingly disillusioned because Matt and I seemed to be sharing most of the work - he was on 5 an hour,I had only recently been increased from 9600 pa to 12000  pa after 4 years service.Meanwhile Graham ,while keeping a salary of some 2000 pa more than myself was reduced to pottering around the warehouse and answering the phone.At this time,Graham Bail sent a warning letter to myself stating I was not emptying the clothing banks correctly and not following the routes correctly.The Wednesday run would have taken some 10-11 hours on the road to complete,then all clothes had to be bagged.All the routes bar one were too large to fit into the 40 hours per week stated on  our employment contract.No additional payment was ever made for working over 40 hours as stated on the contract.Eventually we were told that weekend overtime would be mandatory -with pay.I received another warning letter identical to the first ,then,on return from a weeks holiday in September 2003,was handed notice of dismissal.Since leaving ,I spoke to Graham C who told me 6

drivers had come and gone in about 2 months,and not long after this ,he himself left after nearly 5 years.

 

                 Just before I left,I understood another depot was to be set up in Bury St Edmunds,Suffolk,but I now hear the firm has lost all its Morrisons supermarket sites.