20 September 2006

Send your 'trolley jam' food here

As 'trolley jammers' hit supermarkets around Wellington, leaving full trolleys of goods behind, Downtown Community Ministry is offering to pick them up for its busy food bank.

"We're impressed by the creative efforts of this group to draw our attention to the plight of these workers who have been locked out from work or pay for nearly four weeks," said DCM Director Stephanie McIntyre.

"But if there are trolleys full of food being left behind, we'd be happy to come and get them. I'm sure it'd save the staff all that time putting them back and our food bank could really do with a top up right now."

Newspapers this morning cited both Kilbirnie and Johnsonville Woolworths as targets of the jammers who have halted shopping for "more than half an hour" by forcing supervisors to "check deliberate errors on eftpos machines and requests to delete items from trolleys".

The reports also say that regular shoppers have been forced to leave their trolleys and go elsewhere.

DCM receives regular donations of food from New World supermarkets and their customers and is calling on Woolworths do the same.

"We make up over 30 food parcels every week for clients using the food bank. Any extra donations we can get are highly appreciated."

The 'trolley jammers' say their actions are to support the 500 distribution workers in Mangere, Christchurch and Palmerston North who are locked out by their employer Progressive Enterprises.

Union representatives and Progressive management held talks till 3:30am this morning and an announcement is expected to be made later today.

ENDS

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