Racism at Halfords - Chester

INTRODUCTION

My name is Alan Wainwright (alanwainwright1963@gmail.com) and I exposed the secret blacklisting of over 3,000 workers by forty of the UK's largest construction companies. This is best summed in this Guardian interview 

After being blacklisted for many years, I found part-time work in June 2023 at the Halfords Caldy Valley store in Chester. 

The employment was short-lived after management learned of my previous trade union activity and let me go. 

During this short time, I came across a range of racist and other vile conduct from Halfords staff there. 

This was condoned by the store manager, Josh Perry (below) and deputy store manager, Aaron Gore

PIKEYS

My first experience of racism came from Assistant Store Manager, Aaron Gore in response to a question about what to do should I suspect a potential theft. His response was that the only people we had to worry about with respect to theft were people from the travelling community. 

In the weeks that followed, there were further incidents where Aaron Gore would whip up a storm of concern (in person and over the radio headsets) about certain customers with Irish accents, with the inference being that they were there to steal. 

On Friday 8 September 2023, both Richard Howells and Wayne Murphy referred to three Irish customers as Pikeys. Richard over the store radio headsets and Wayne directly in person to me. This was not the first time they'd referred to Irish customers in this way. 

OTHER RACISM

On 22 June 2023, shortly after two Pakistani men drowned in the Titan submarine disaster, Joe Tunney posted a video of a Pakistani man and the Titan submarine in the Halfords Chester (Caldy Valley) store WhatsApp group. 

In this, the caption says:

"Here is the audio of the knocking they caught from the submarine"

A Pakistani man is then heard saying: 

"I am underwater, please help me". 

In another Halfords store WhatsApp group message from late July, Joe Tunney posted the following after attending a Halfords training course:

"Just been arguing with some Turkish prick 😂😂😂"

Rather than discipline Joe Tunney for these racist posts, store manager, Josh Perry then announced Joe Tunney as the Chester (Caldy Valley) 'colleague of the month' for July in the very next post. 

This was then endorsed by the deputy manager, Aaron Gore who posted:

"100% agree"

This was then endorsed by the technician (and sometimes acting store manager), Wayne Murphy who posted:

"Well done @Joe"

HALFORDS' CHIEF EXECUTIVE - GRAHAM STAPLETON

I've written to the Halfords Chief Executive (graham.stapleton@halfords.com) about this on three separate occasions and provided him with all the supporting evidence. It's now clear that he intends to do absolutely nothing about this, as the correspondence has been ignored and all those involved are still working at the store.

All the letters and supporting evidence are published below in this blog.