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Hundreds of workers inside The Warehouse distribution center on the North Island are set to leave work next week after negotiation talks with the retail company cracked.
First Union says workers are frustrated with their handling of the restructurings, as well as their treatment of contract workers.
While the company posted a multi-million dollar profit, store workers faced layoffs and distribution center workers faced their own separate pay problems.
“DC workers have also been watching the outright sham and mockery of their employer firing hundreds of stores across the country as they literally move in and out of trucks and warehouses at a rate like never before,” says the union. organizer Hayley Courtney.
About 270 staff members will participate in the march.
Operations within the company’s distribution center, which is responsible for handling online orders and shipping goods across the country, is likely to come to a halt once the strike begins at midnight Monday.
The company is struggling to ease the impact for customers, and online orders in the North Island are likely to be delayed as a result.
The North Island stores, as well as the South Island distribution center, will ship deliveries in an effort to mitigate the impact on the Warehouse’s online deliveries.
The Warehouse says that while it respects its employees’ right to strike, it believes the current offer being negotiated is reasonable.
“We are disappointed with this action due to the fact that we have been trading in good faith for many months,” COO Pejman Okhovat told 1 NEWS.
The company says that much of the staff within the distribution center are considered to be paid “above the top quartile for the retail industry,” and that even the lowest paid staff members still earn eight percent more than the salary. worthy.
According to First Union, the decision to go on strike was made after The Warehouse rejected multiple attempts to “provide an avenue for contract workers to secure jobs.”
“It’s highly offensive to be milked for all they’re worth and then fired without notice or reason so the company can avoid the legal obligations of employing them directly,” says Courtney.
However, Warehouse is asking its team members to rethink the tabletop deal that it says offers security at a time when the job market is particularly tight.
“We are focused on providing certainty to our distribution center members. We are offering a salary increase over an already competitive rate and better provisions for bereavement and sick leave,” says Okhovat.
The 24-hour strike is the first action these workers must take on the issue, but First Union says it may not be the last if negotiations don’t improve.
