Whitcoulls workers the big losers in sale process

Media Release: National Distribution Union
Monday May 30, 2011

Whitcoulls workers the big losers in sale process

Last week’s cautious optimism on the sale of Whitcoulls turned to outrage over the weekend as the National Distribution Union sighted proposed job agreements workers are being required to sign by the end of today.

The union is calling for these proposed employment agreements to be withdrawn, and is seeking legal advice, NDU General Secretary Robert Reid said.

“Workers at Whitcoulls stores were given individual employment agreements by James Pascoe on Friday and told to return them signed by Monday. The reason for the rushed timeframe became apparent as soon as we looked at them.”

“Whitcoulls workers are being asked to sign away any entitlement to redundancy compensation, notice of termination of employment and any claims or grievances from their previous employer.”

“If the Administrator made workers redundant today, it would have to make a lieu of notice payment and redundancy payment, up to a cap of $18,600 per person.”

“Under this agreement, James Pascoe could take on a worker for one week and make them redundant the next week with no redundancy compensation pay whatsoever.”

“Even at a conservative estimate, the 900 Whitcoulls workers in the sales process could have lieu payments and redundancy entitlements of $5,000 each. This means that Whitcoulls workers are being forced to contribute almost half a million dollars of entitlements to the sale. It could well be double that.”

“The actions of the Administrator and the buyer (James Pascoe) may well be illegal, and the union is seeking advice on that. However the issue should not be whether it is legal or not, the issue is a moral and ethical one of how any company should treat its staff when the staff are in a vulnerable position.”

Robert Reid said that Farmers workers, who were members of the NDU, had a redundancy clause in their collective agreement with the chain of department stores, also owned by James Pascoe.

“Why does the James Pascoe group want to remove this entitlement from Whitcoulls workers?”

“Never in my 30 years of working as a trade unionist have I ever seen such a blatant ruse to force workers to sign out of their rights and entitlements in a business transfer situation.”

“The National Distribution Union still believes that this is a good sale for the future of book retailing in New Zealand, but it should not be premised on the slashing of working conditions of the loyal staff,” Robert Reid said.

Background

The current Whitcoulls redundancy agreement gives workers four week’s pay for the first year of service and two weeks for every year after that up to 20 weeks redundancy pay.

Clause 2.2 of the proposed individual employment agreement requires the employee to sign away “entitlement to redundancy compensation, notice of termination of employment (including any payment in lieu of notice) or any claims or grievances in relationship to the termination of …employment with Whitcoulls / Borders.”

Clause 10.3 states that if someone is made redundant after being employed by James Pascoe he or she “will be declared redundant and no redundancy compensation shall be payable”.

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