New bosses at The Warehouse don’t know how to do business

New bosses at The Warehouse just don’t know how to do business in New Zealand

Jobs are on the line for 180 people across 99 stores at The Warehouse. The announcement of proposed staff cuts was made to Warehouse staff yesterday.

FIRST Union organiser Kate Davis is baffled by the announcement, as other players such as Kmart are doing incredibly well.
“We do not want this to go ahead. Other retail companies are thriving. It suggests to us that the new company bosses just don’t know how to do business in New Zealand. It’s now a far cry from the red shed we all know and used to love. Tindall’s work was fantastic but make no mistake; this is just about the opposite of what he set up. ”

She says new company CEO Nick Grayston (pocketing $1.77 million in the last financial year) is finally putting the company’s ‘radical transformation programme’ into play. Six more executives at the company are now on over a million dollars a year and it’s now apparent where the company plans to get that money.

“Members don’t know if it’ll be them who get the cut, it is largely supervisors who are affected. What we do know is that supervisors tend to be the older career retail workers who have solid hours. It’s a slash and burn team of high paid US executives brought in to undermine and destroy the security of work for New Zealand workers. Those familiar faces people know at their local red shed will be gone, they are the ones who will be made redundant.”

Ms Davis says Mr Grayson has stated how much he looked forward to the year ahead, to give customers what they want.
“We're looking forward to 2018, we've changed our business model in The Warehouse to follow what customers told us they wanted – amazing low prices, available every day. …to make kiwi lives easier.” – Herald 27th Dec, 2015
“But we know they don’t want low prices at the expense of their own workers and local economies so that a few can be paid a superfluous amount.”

“The new Warehouse seems to want to move to part time staff, on minimal wages despite its profits. We have also seen a rise in the use of students who earn NZQA credits instead of money working at the store, and some of the most vulnerable in society, those receiving assistance from the government, work for free at The Warehouse to gain experience.”

Ms Davis says New Zealand’s record-hitting underemployment figures show New Zealanders want more hours, and women are well over-represented in these numbers.
“This move will disadvantage families, and mainly women who are trying to gain full time employment. People want more hours, Kiwis are hard workers, pay them what they’re worth and give them stable hours.” – Statistics New Zealand (see editor’s note below)

She says the kind of working structures the company is pushing for is not the working way of New Zealanders and the company needs to realise that fair hours and fair pay are the only way to a sustainable work future.
“Is this what we want our retail workforce to be like in the future? Or do we want to provide people with real jobs that are secure and allow people to live healthy lives? I know what one I prefer, our communities prefer, and workers prefer.”

Workers were given one week to reply to the proposal, FIRST Union has requested this is increased to August 7th to allow for workers to have adequate time to consider the impacts andrespond.

ENDS

Note to Editor:
The total underemployed figure (including those actively seeking employment) is 114,900, with 9000 less people than the last quarter. While in the short term this looks like good news, it is a small change in what has been an overall worsening trend, especially considering the last quarter figures were the highest rate of underemployment on record (total underemployment 122,000, this figure had a quarterly increase of 7000).
The national underemployment rate for the first quarter of 2018 is 4.4, with women well overrepresented in this area, the underemployment rate for females is 6.4. For both genders the national figure for the number of people underemployed and actively seeking more hours remains high at 64,600.

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