Foodstuffs Suspends Workers After Strike

Media Release: National Distribution Union

Friday December 13, 2009

Just days after a new report finding Kiwis are paying more for their groceries than in most other OECD countries, retail giant Foodstuffs has suspended workers at its Christchurch distribution centres following limited strike action yesterday.

National Distribution Union (NDU) General Secretary Robert Reid says that workers have been trying to negotiate a collective agreement for 8 months, and news that grocery price rises for New Zealand consumers are the second highest in the OECD just adds insult to injury.

“Foodstuffs South Island cooperative made a $227 million profit in the year to February 2009, up from $222 million the year before. It is no wonder that Foodstuffs New Zealand chief executive Tony Carter has been saying that New Zealand's supermarket sector trumps any other industry right now in sales growth and expansion opportunities.”

Earlier this year Carter told a Property Institute Conference in Auckland ‘It sounds trite, but we are in the best industry in one of the best countries to be right now.’

“This is a company that can easily afford a decent wage increase,” Robert Reid said. “For Foodstuffs to suspend its workers leading into Canterbury anniversary weekend over a one-hour strike yesterday is a big overreaction.”

Following the one-hour strike yesterday over stalled pay negotiations, members of the National Distribution Union were met with indefinite suspension notices. Robert Reid said that workers would turn up for afternoon shifts today, but union members in previous shifts were being told to leave the site.

ENDS

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