Retail strike wave hits Bunnings as workers reject insecure contracts

• 70 Bunnings workers from four Auckland stores striked outside the company’s head office between 12.30pm and 1.30pm today;

• This comes after a strike at Bunnings Mount Maunganui and similar strikes in other retail chains like the Warehouse;

• Striking workers are calling on the company to return to bargaining and settle a fair collective agreement.

Bunnings workers across the country will be walking off the job for one or two hours at a time over the next fortnight after overwhelmingly rejecting the Australian-owned hardware store’s attempt to lock them into insecure contracts, says FIRST Union Retail and Finance Secretary Maxine Gay.

“99 percent of our members have voted to reject the company’s offer. Now workers from stores across the country will strike.”

“Workers are resisting the company’s attempt to impose insecure contracts. Bunnings is proposing a collective agreement that will hand bosses the power to chop and change start and finish times without the worker’s agreement,” says Gay.

“Although workers will have guaranteed hours over a fortnight, Bunnings is also proposing a clause that will allow management to unilaterally change what days of the week workers are rostered on for.”

“Workers need certainty so they can plan things like childcare. You can’t plan your life when your work situation keeps changing,” says Gay.

“This sort of insecurity is going to cause tremendous stress. It’s actually how zero hours start, inch by inch the company removes workers’ rights.”

“Workers are not going to let themselves be locked in to such a one-sided agreement.”

ENDS

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