"Waterstones living-wage protesters leave bookselling", 10 August 2019

Five Waterstones booksellers who delivered a petition to head office calling...a living wage...have all now resigned, citing low pay and pressure as reasons for their departure.

The news comes in the week that Waterstones’ owner...Elliott Advisors, completes its acquisition of US book chain Barnes & Noble...Waterstones chief executive and managing director James Daunt will become chief executive of...Barnes & Noble, while also heading up...Waterstones shops...

...The petition, started by staff member April Newton...called on the UK’s...bookselling chain to pay its staff an hourly wage of £9, or £10.55 in Greater London...

...While Waterstones said...it welcomed the petition, Newton and the four colleagues who accompanied her to a...meeting with Daunt have since resigned. “I decided I was no longer willing to tolerate the low pay and difficult working conditions,”...

...Daunt...admitted there is “still a problem with [pay for] people when they first start...We’re working our way through this in the best way we can. I wouldn’t characterise [the mood] as wholesale dissatisfaction but it is quite rightly an issue that a number of people feel very passionately about. And I don’t I disagree with them...”