Resignation letter from a John Lewis Partner

The John Lewis Partnership is abusing its female staff and customers

I’m grateful to Lesley for granting permission to publish her resignation letter. For over 70 years, John Lewis has had a unique ownership structure in which staff members collectively own the business through a trust. However, it now seems that trans activists within the company are compromising the safety of female staff and customers, and many partners are not happy.

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My name is Lesley Pickup. I am employed as a Selling Partner on the first floor in your Cheadle Branch. 

For the past 20 years, I have been involved with female victims from all faiths, cultures, ethnicities, and backgrounds who have been subjected to domestic and sexual violence and psychological abuse by men. 

They have lived and continue to live terrible lives, in constant fear of violence both physical and emotional. They have no autonomy at home, no voice, no self-worth, accorded no respect, and all too often ignored by a Police Force and CPS who should be there to protect them.

For many their only escape from such a life is work. Work offers them physical and emotional safety. It is a place where they are treated with respect, where they are treated as human beings and where their opinions matter. Where people listen to them. Where they can, for a few hours in the day, live a NORMAL life and where they are free from a world where they are expected at all times to be subservient to needs of men or face severe consequences. 

With a predominantly female work force the law of averages states that there will be such victims employed by John Lewis. John Lewis may never know who they are for many will not want to contaminate their only safe, normal space with the life they live outside. If no such ladies work for John Lewis, then it is probably the only company in the UK. 

Work offers the only time in their lives where they should have guaranteed female-only safe spaces free from the demands of men regardless of who those men claim to be. 

Sadly, I have found this no longer to be the case for the female employees of John Lewis, where without negotiation, unilaterally, arbitrarily and WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT or any say in the matter whatsoever, they are now expected to be completely and without question subservient to the needs of their male colleagues. 

Married, male colleagues, with full male genitalia, not transitioning to female, who live as husbands at home but choose to dress as women at work, assuming female names, and expecting full access to toilettes and locker rooms which were previously female-only employee safe spaces. This regardless and without one moment of thought or consideration for any negative effects and consequences on their female colleagues. 

Female colleagues who I know to be triggered, caused anxiety and mental distress by these men’s presence in previously safe female spaces. 

Female colleagues who live in fear of dismissal if they speak out. So just like home they put up and shut up and acquiesce to the demands of men. 

Their oppressive home lives being replicated at work. 

Just like home they don’t matter because JOHN LEWIS has never sought their INPUT or CONSENT for this intrusion into their safe spaces. 

Nor has JOHN LEWIS ever sought the CONSENT of its female employees whose faith forbids them from being in such close intimate spaces with men who they are not related to or married to. It’s one thing being on the shop floor surrounded by customers and colleagues its quite another to be in a locker room or toilette. 

Likewise, JOHN LEWIS does not inform nor seek the CONSENT of the parents and carers of young female work experience students below 18 YOA to permit their daughters to be in female-safe spaces with men with full male genitalia. I can find no written available safeguarding policy acknowledging John Lewis’s duty of care to safeguard and promote the welfare of these young female students, or any students for that matter. There is no commitment to ensure safeguarding practises reflect statutory responsibilities, government guidance and are in line with Ofsted requirements. A Policy which should recognise that the welfare of young female students is paramount in all circumstances which includes female safe spaces. 

Parents, carers, female employees of all faiths and none may have freely give their CONSENT for this.  They may have no problem with men in their safe spaces. But John Lewis doesn’t know because it has never asked. Opting instead to impose an unnegotiated policy, unilaterally and arbitrarily upon its female employees with no knowledge of their back story nor regard or concern for the consequences for their safety and mental health.  At the moment it’s all about the men who identify as women, whether transitioning or NOT.  

Dismissively, John Lewis state female employees can use the disabled toilette and be provided with a small locker for a purse and car keys away from the female changing rooms. Nowhere to hang their coats up or deposit wet umbrellas etc and only the disabled loo to change in which quite rightly they can only use after their disabled colleagues. Why is it that your female employees have to change their behaviour to concede to the demands of their male colleagues? You instruct them to discuss this matter with their manager. Managers who have no authority and dare not challenge the company line. 

John Lewis, you just don’t get it. Victims don’t want to tell their manager. They don’t want to contaminate the only space where they once felt normal and safe. They don’t want to draw attention to themselves or have to admit to another and themselves about their awful home lives. They don’t want their colleagues noticing or discussing that they behave differently from everyone else, whilst waiting in the corridor to use the disabled loo. Respectfully your managers are not qualified to discuss such matters with women. 

We are told it’s in your terms and conditions. It was not in my contract of employment which was the only document I was party to pre-employment. 

This policy has no benefit to the profitability of John Lewis. 

I am sure if I get any response to my concerns, it will be dismissive, with name-calling and condemnation from the top table. But I don’t care. I only care about those women less fortunate than myself and that such women are safe at work and treated with respect and understanding.  

I am grateful to be in a financial position where I no longer have to put up with a situation that causes me distress to witness. I have no mortgage and an excellent final salary pension. 

Sadly, the majority of your female employees are not in such a fortunate position, instead being forced to put up and shut up to pay the rent. They are not happy about this situation. You can see it on their faces if you care to look.  

Therefore, please accept my resignation from John Lewis with effect from Wednesday 07 August 2024. I will not be serving out my two weeks’ notice as I am not prepared to set foot in an establishment, either as an employee or a customer, that chooses to treat its female members of staff with such disregard when it comes to their safe spaces, placing the demands of men above all else. 

Shopping in JL used to be a great, fun experience. A fabulous distraction from the trials and stresses of everyday life. It was pure theatre. What your female employees didn’t know about the goods you sell wasn’t worth knowing. 

Not anymore. It’s now full of anxiety, controversy, and abuse of your female staff.  

Lesley Pickup