27/08/2024
"NEXT" pay ruling tpday - 50 years ago Shirley was the only female shop employee of Dixons selling cameras and TVs etc - all the other women/girls across the country were either not classed as counter sales team members even if they did assist customers (a male assistant had to complete the sale) or only had backroom jobs. She was a very competent photographer and the manager of the branch on The Moor, Sheffield, hired her as a camera salesperson (she had little to do with hifi and TV). She did very well and often earned more than I did as a newspaper trainee. But she was still paid less then her male colleagues, even though she shared all the work. The shop staff decided to threaten industrial action (exactly what I'm not sure) and supported her claim to equal pay. The national management rested their case on her inability as a woman to lift and handle then large packages of stock which had to be offloaded. These were taken to a first floor store-room and for speed, the staff formed a chain and passed (almost threw, but not as this was precision equipment) boxes up the stairs without them touching the ground or anyone having to lug them up stairs and then go back down. It was a quick employee-invented solution. When the management visited to review Shirley's claim that women should be equally paid, she took her place in chain to prove that a girlie could indeed heft 25 kilo boxes on a hand to hand chain.
She got her equal pay and so did all Dixons female shop counter sales staff from then on. She also learned a lot from experienced staff there like Fred (the most senior or longest-serving) and enjoyed working with contemporary young staff like Ian Chapman, though she didn't work there for very long. The customer she remembered best for his charm - and for making a beeline for the glamorous girl salesperson - was Freddie "Ate My Hamster" Starr, who she said was the politest entertainer she ever met (and we knew a good many) and unlike many didn't try to hit on her.
I do not know whether this Dixons initiative lasted, but in 1981 when she became co director of the Minolta Club of Great Britain with me, she peraused Minolta UK to offer a place on our one-week photo training holiday in Tunisia as a prize for the best Dixons counter staff Minolta sales record of the season. I've forgotten the young salesman's name but he was a real photo enthusiast and a good addition to our mixed party of old and young, male and female, beginner to expert tourists.
