JD Sports falls further despite strong response to Rochdale criticism

Hitherto high-flying JD Sports Fashion hit back after a Channel 4 News report levelled criticism at the sports retailer's working practices at its Kingsway distribution centre in Rochdale.

The FTSE 250 company, which saw its shares lose 7% on Wednesday on fears the company could be embroiled by the same sort of scandal that hit rival Sports Direct, issued a strong and detailed response on the regulatory news service, saying it believe the footage was not an accurate reflection of its culture but promising to "do better", launching an investigation and promising to urgently retrain supervisory staff.

"While we maintain that the policies and procedures in place are robust and fair, it is clear that we need to do better in their implementation. In the short term, we intend to retrain all supervisory and security employees at the facility, as a matter of urgency, to ensure that those policies are correctly reflected across the workplace," the company said.

Addressing some specific allegations raised by Channel 4's undercover reporter, JD insisted it does not operate a "strike" policy nor that its workers can be fired 'on the spot', adding that it operates an appeal process based on the ACAS code of practice.

"Our time and attendance system is specifically designed to ensure that all workers are paid for the time it takes to exit any queue on leaving the site, and we pay all employees in full who are up to 15 minutes late on arrival."

Directors pledged to carry out a review of all staffing policies, communication and implementation at the site, "with the clear aim not only to continue the improvement of the facility, but also to think about the future structure of employment at the site for the benefit of all the people employed at Kingsway", and said it will "readily open our doors to an appropriate independent body wishing to scrutinise our operations at Kingsway".

Independent retail analyst Nick Bubb said it was not good to hear that JD had been dragged into the debate about poor working conditions in distribution warehouses, "but at least it has been upfront about the problems and has been proactive on the PR front".