CONDITIONS at Sports Direct are “akin to a workhouse,” the union representing staff at the company charged yesterday.

Unite is calling for precariously employed workers at the company’s main warehouse to be paid the living wage and moved onto permanent contracts.

Earlier this year, Sports Direct’s billionaire founder Mike Ashley refused to be questioned by a committee of MPs, which had planned to grill him on the axing of 200 jobs when a subsidiary of his retail empire was put in administration.