Until recently, my brother worked for Field & Trek in the Liverpool branch.

On Wednesday 11th January he left the shop as usual and went home, returning on Thursday morning work. He was surprised to find that the shop had simply gone. The stock, and shop fittings having been removed sometime in the night after he had gone home. Neither they nor the manager, who is soon to be married, had been told anything in advance.

When they phoned head office, they were told that the shop had been closed down, they would be paid for a further six weeks (the minimum legal requirement) and that they were now redundant.

I for one will avoid Field and Trek in every way in the future, voting in the only way they seem to understand, financially. I feel that a retailer in the normally friendly and supportive sector who treats its staff in this way deserves to hear that we believe people cannot be treated in this way and I would appreciate it if you feel like it to support this boycott.

It would be great if you could pass this on to any who may prefer to support those companies who support their staff.

Richard

Interesting story. It would be nice to hear the "other" side, if indeed there is one.

As someone who doesn't have a local F&T, all my attempts at dealing with them in the past has been through the web site - and issues with that have been well documented here previously.

I wish your brother (and the other employees) well.

what a set of 'not nice people'

Seems that industrial relations have never really moved on...

F&T used to be good in the days when they were primarily mail order and offered a useful discount. Now they are mostly full price and have been killing shops like mad.

There used to be one in my town, which closed, and then used to be one 5 miles away, which closed. Now it's central London or nowt. And the stock levels are not that good.

In the past I've bought a fair bit from them, but this has put me off.

I'm amazed that some enterprising soul has not opened some kind of really large outdoor superstore in the London area (S London please!) with absolutely loads of stock from all the leading brands. One of the big problems with mail order is not being able to try stuff on or look at it first. Given the margins on outdoor gear it would seem a good business venture.

Is Liverpool the only one affected? Just pulled up the stores list from F&T, The list in the left margin has 15 stores but only 11 are on the main page: Stores list
Or is it another "computer" error...??

Gloucester has also been closed - guess I won't be going there this weekend now! Oh well - will go to Cotswold instead!

Interesting. I just walked down to the F&T in Oxford thinking I'd have a browse at the sale stuff. There were lights on in the store but they had stuck card up all over the windows-looked like it was closing down.

Came online and found this post!

Really harsh on the staff as it was a YHA store that closed down before but I think the manager stayed on when it converted to F&T.

I think the problem is F&T expanded to have too many stores.

Blacks and millets seem to have killed off Touchwoods and F&T in Oxford. I think a lot of people buy on the net and for your ordinary person off the street Blacks looks more inviting with the brands people like to be seen in.

F&T were pains when it came to discounts though. Much as I hate blacks they do stock some nice stuff (e.g. Icebreaker) and give me a 10% student discount.

I expect Manchester will close down too looking at the website.

Richard - I'm sorry to hear that.

On the basis of what you've described, your brother has a watertight unfair dismissal claim. It would be worth him approaching a local CAB to take some advice about making a claim in the employment tribunal. It's not expensive, and relatively straightforward.

Good luck to him.

There seems to be pattern emerging here. On top of everything, offering gear for low sale prices when it is not in stock. Is F&T coasting towards receivership perhaps?

Not the way business should be done. Atrocious treatment of their staff.

If the Manchester store is still there, I shall spit on their windows on Monday, in protest.

The manchester store is not there,

I have a number of friends who worked there and they have been treated exactly the same.

I worked for the yha when they went (or more accuratly karrimor) and it sucked.

Good luck to all of the ex fiteld and trek staff

Dave

What a bastard thing to do.
My Mum will be devastated.
F&T in Liverpool was one of her favourite shops, and she thought very highly of the lad with the long hair who worked there as he was very helpful ; put up with her ravings about technical fabrics and introduced her to the Salomon approach shoes she's wearing on holiday in La Gomera at the moment.
What's the odds on a sneaky takeover somewhere?

F&T sound like an abreviation for F'ing T£$*'s. Thats just cowadly middle management not being up to the job of coming clean and letting people know that there lives are about to come crashing down around there ears. Fingers crossed that the coward will arrive on monday to find his desk has been swapped for a coffee vending machine and his belongings are in a black plastic bag next to the shredding machine.

That's the mad thing about EU employment legislation. If there were more than 20 employees at any shop they would have to give notice of impending redundancy and consult. As it is they can do what the f*** they like. The retail industry sucks!

These tales are alarming. 'Fair enough if they have to close stores but in this manner? F&T have been known to post here many times in the post. I wonder if they'll choose to ignore this thread?

Lets face it there are retailers out there doing well and obviously retailers not doing well. F & T's closures means that there is a weakness in either their business plans and/or structures. I for one havent been impressed by their stuff for a while now and have shopped in either Brighams or Cotswolds.
Treating the staff like this is v.poor but F & T will know that there is no come back (legally).

Is everybody here wearing rose tinted glasses? People get made redundant every day. Why stop shopping somewhere just becuase a shop somewhere shut down. If I was running the company and a shop was losing money I wouldn't hesitate to shut it down. The problem here is that everybody considers them to be a public service rather than an enterprise which has shareholders to answer to.

They have done this guy a favour by paying him off with 6 weeks pay. He's now got 6 weeks grace to find a job without having to worry about the mortgage or whatever. Any other company would have just given him notice and expected him to come in and work for the next 6 weeks, and sod him if he was demoralised and couldn't look for a new job!

I feel for this guy, especially as I am going through this at the moment, and I hope he gets sorted soon, but I will happily carry on shopping at Field & Trek.

Not so, Macsen - they can't do what they like. There's an obligation to act reasonably even if the collective consulation provisions don't apply. Employment protection law is actually pretty good in this country.

Ady - I think people are offended by the way it's been done rather than the fact that the shops have closed down.