JD Wetherspoon boss hits back at 'crappy' employer claims

Sir Tim Martin has hit back after his JD Wetherspoon pub chain was branded a “crappy” employer by a union boss.

The pub group issued a rebuttal on the London Stock Exchange after the Telegraph published an interview with Paul Nowak, head of the Trades Union Congress (TUC).

In the interview, Nowak said the new Labour government would make “crappy employers” such as Wetherspoon and Amazon pay the price for bad behaviour.

He also claimed the pub group was part of a group of “anti-union employers who have built their business models on low-paid, insecure employment”.

Wetherspoon, which operates around 800 UK pubs, said the comments were “completely inaccurate and unjustified”.

Martin said: "If people in powerful positions, such as Paul Nowak, make serious allegations, which have absolutely no basis in fact, it will deter business investment in the UK.

“Investment is a primary generator of growth which, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer has recently said, is the number one objective of the government."

Wetherspoon said staff retention was at its “highest-ever level” and over 11,000 of its 42,854 staff had worked for the company for five years or more.

Of those, 3,895 had worked for the chain for 10 years and 632 had spent two decades at the pub group.

Wetherspoon said it had paid £504m in free shares and bonuses to staff since 2007 and had been recognised by the Top Employers Institute for 19 years.

Last week, Martin said sales per pub at Wetherspoon were approximately 21% higher than pre-pandemic levels.

However, the company has faced a major hike in costs, with its wage bill rising £164m and energy costs increasing by £28m in the current financial year.

Despite the challenges, Wetherspoon is continuing to expand and will open a £2.5m pub at London Waterloo Station this summer.

It will be the second multimillion-pound Wetherspoon pub to open at a major London station this year, after the chain launched a £2.3m Captain Flinders pub near Euston in January.