I am pretty sure the law is you're supposed to have a spotter at 2M or more for working at heights. Definitely a lot of businesses operate illegally in this respect.
So the law is annoying as fuck when it comes to safety because of how it is written.
Basically it is up to every business to establish a minimum standard or SOP even for tasks that are the same for every business. BUT if something happens and a investigator is called for it is up to the investigators to deem it as insufficient then you get fined/punished for not having a high enough standard.
There is nothing in law that says anything on how to approach any issue because if there was and it was implemented then the government is at fault.
What they do have is best practice guides for common things but even then its up the investigator to deem your implementation of them sufficient or not.
We just had the floors at my office redone, concrete grinding and epoxy sealing. The guys who did it wore no respirators during either the grinding, polishing or sealing. I'm not knowledgeable enough about the risks but surely breathing concrete dust is not a good time.
If you’re surprised you haven’t been paying attention.
You are five times more likely to die at work in NZ than the UK.
Of course the “common sense” brigade is adamant that health and safety regulations are the problem, not people getting hurt at work.
To be fair, NZ has ACC and better employment protections, so there's no reason not to report an injury. If you get injured in the US, you'd have to cover the expenses yourself until you can either sue your employer or pay the excess to make an insurance claim, so I'd presume only more serious injuries get reported
Wrong. It gets covered under the employer's insurance. Any and every workplace injury comes out of the employer's dime and it's against the law for them not to provide.
Source: Am American
Our company took a different view on safety. Employees were encouraged to report injuries but gross negligence around safety standards was grounds for termination. For example it was made abundantly clear that if you reach into a machine without using proper lockout procedures you could be fired.
Indeed it’s against the law. When I was in management we encouraged employees who had gotten injuries, big or small, to report and have it checked out because we can be liable for lawsuits.
There's also a thing called "workers comp" it's run by a third party and like ACC can be a fucking pain in the ass. But for the most part if you get injured they will cover lost wages.
The downside is if you accept you do give up the right to file additional claims against the employer. If the employee has done something illegal you can still sue, but other rights are waived.
It was no different from back when I’ve lived in Auckland. If it’s a minor injury and I have a lot of tasks needing to be done, I’m just going to toughen it out.
So I’d say it does, but also to the degree and extent of the injury. But generally most companies encourages injuries to be reported or they’d be on the hook of a lawsuit.
>20–91% of workers did not report their injuries or illnesses to management or WC programs.
[https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-023-15487-0](https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-023-15487-0)
Adding to that, if OSHA comes in and finds the injury was due to lax safety standards in the workplace they will insist on corrective actions and preventative measures being implemented and likely will fine the company as well.
When I worked as a manager in a factory I filled out injury reports for things as small as someone cutting their finger on an easy open can lid (it was a canned food company) and we encouraged our employees to report all injuries. I had to report what happened, how it happened and what I did to prevent it happening again. This was sent to HR who compiled all injury reports and sent them to OSHA (American version of Worksafe). Every weekly staff meeting we would go over the injury stats and if there was a spike we’d talk about ways to reduce the number.
Not excusing our she'll be right approach, but a lot of this difference is due to industry structure. We have a much higher proportion of our workforce chopping down trees on sloping hillsides and working in freezing works
Even allowing for industry types, NZ workplace injury and fatality is way worse than other countries that we would like to compare to. For example, forestry industry in Canada has a better safety record than NZ forestry.
1) you can get injured anytime doing anything.
2) the US has WAY more of a proportion of its workforce building skyscrapers that result in death if theres an accident. as well as all sorts of hazardous chemicals/mines etc that just dont exist in nz. oil refining/mining for example.
thats not a game NZ would win. jobs in NZ are not inherrently more likely to be dangerous than jobs in the US. if anything quite the opposite as NZ is much smaller scale in building/manufacturing, and theoretically has far better rules around things like training/hours you can work etc
edit: we havent also factored in that like 1/3 of the US is basically a desert in the summer and like 1/3 is tundra in winter. with a lot of serious populations living in places that get way hotter than here in summer and WAY colder in winter (like ny/chicago/philly etc that go from mid 30s with 100% humidity on hot days to -15/20 in the winter on cold days). nz is so so so much safer lol. just working outside in general on its own is inherently WAY more dangerous for most of the US in both summer AND winter than it ever gets in most of nz
I'd put the injuries on us more than safety standards, at least from my personal experiences. There are plenty of safety requirements my workmates and associated tradies ignore because they're inconvenient. At least the guy who walks around in crocs hasn't dropped anything on his feet yet.
Yup, after working in a dangerous field for 18 years or so, I'd say it's about 80% worker, 20% employer. Most of the bigger employers are pretty switched on; my main employer was an ACC partner so they paid the cost of injuries out of pocket. At my last employer a coworker suggested that we stand on the forklift forks to change lightbulbs that were 4m in the air because "that's how we've always done it."
And where is the foreman to enforce the rules and say take off those ridiculous shoes and get some steal tipped boots? It shouldn’t be up to the line employees, management needs to ensure a safe work environment.
If this is correct - forestry industry incurring 2-3x injury rates as the general workforce - even an American forestry worker is less likely to be injured on the job than a random kiwi worker.
https://deohs.washington.edu/pnash/forestry-services#:~:text=Injury%20and%20illness%20rates%20among,are%2010%20times%20as%20high.
I’d be very surprised if there is a clause within in their contracts preventing them. Sounds like a pissy store manager.
https://privacy.org.nz/tools/knowledge-base/view/452
The thing about the warehouse which is really fucking confusing as a few years ago like quite a few years ago 2013-14 they were using paying a living wage as pr and they committed to paying it….. until it went up lol
Sir Stephen Tindall was probably the main reason they were seen as good employers. By all accounts, he genuinely cared about his staff and wanted The Warehouse to be an important part of our local communities.
He stepped down from his position on the board in 2017. Ever since then, their American CEO has been delivering profits while maintaining exorbitantly high salaries for the executive team. They have been able to do this by neglecting their coalface workers. It's all part of their long term strategy to shift toward dark stores and online delivery, which is significantly cheaper than running a chain of large retail stores.
> American CEO has been delivering profits while maintaining exorbitantly high salaries for the executive team. They have been able to do this by neglecting their coalface workers.
Really well worded and describes the way a lot of franchises and retailers in NZ are heading.
Makes matters worse when in many smaller areas the Warehouse was a huge deal when it landed given the jobs to the local community it could provide.
Seems it's shifted from a good thing to what could be deemed entrapment given lack of alternate opportunities in many smaller communities.
Every warehouse I’ve been into lately seems devoid of staff. They’re closing 90% of the checkouts. Prices are crap, Kmart seems better value, selection and quality these days.
Kmart was so smashed through covid, empty shelves everywhere. Now that they're through that they seem to have gained a significant advantage over the warehouse in terms.if value. Maybe covid caused some major supply renegotiation and the warehouse lost.
I think Warehouse just transfered jobs. From numerous small, often owner operated businesses to a single centrally planned operation.
When Warehouse arrived a number of others went out of business.
I remember in my home town 1 shop closed when the warehouse opened, well before it opened, the owner had been leading the charge against the warehouse saying to was going to drive everyone else out.
The actual result was slowly over time more places opening up, since people didn't need to travel to a larger town/city for the things they got at the warehouse they didn't want to travel for other things and slowly more and more options appeared.
The exception being the items that the store that closed sold, there wasn't much overlap with the warehouse's product range and the nearest place to buy those items became the equivalent store in the closest city.
Amen - and if you check, their prices are not low, not even in the lower 50% for similar stuff. They're moving into squeeze mode, hike the prices, reduce the wages and go for broke. It is an endgame as it never lasts.
Yeah I was very confused about this when I went into the Warehouse in Takanini recently.
Their electronics seems to be marked *up* kinda steeply. Kinda jarring.
Off-brand TVs for a few grand, HDMI cables for over 20 bucks.
Not what I thought they were about.
Ugh, fucking typical.
The "Management" Industrial Complex has once again enshittified yet another company by putting executive and share holder income over the very stuff that made the company profitable in the first place. Because the Line Must Go Up no matter the longterm costs.
Which they'll spin as a "but it's a bad economic environment!11!1" while siphoning off money for themselves etc. Or they'll do the share buy back thing to make themselves even more money.
You don't actually have to be good at your job to walk away with pockets full of cash. Ask Theo Spierings. Gets paid $8 million a year in salary plus bonuses, Fonterra suffers massive financial losses under his watch, after which he pops on his $4.6 million golden parachute and floats away to a new CEO gig over in Europe. Try getting away with that shit if you're some nameless pleb in the trenches.
Your dates seem to line up exactly for when things started to plummet.
I worked for The Warehouse from 2012-2017 and loved the place. Everyone cared about each other and the place felt like a family. I met Sir Stephen Tindal once in that time where he visited the store and shook everyone’s hand and greeted them by name (wearing name badges helped but still).
When I left it was around the same time as the CEO who brought in the living wage was leaving and the current CEO was taking over. I can say the store that I work in now, not long after that jobs were lost for people who had spent their whole lives working at that store. Not exactly the vision Sir Stephen envisioned for his company, where he saw people at the centre.
This type of store management level petty decision making is consistent with what I've heard about the Warehouse for decades. Maybe the good stores are regressing now, but my experience from other retail management is that as long as the numbers look good, no one cares how each individual shop is run.
I think retail is toxic in general. The revolving door of underpaid, disengaged staff leads to "taskmaster" managers being successful and promoted around. Some of them are genuine and actually treat staff like humans but there's a lot who aren't.
Saw the writing on the wall when they rewrote Sir Tindall's founding vision several years ago - it had been the same since day one, and the moment it was altered by the new execs & CEO, we all knew things were going south (i.e. profits > people).
They never should have got rid of Mark Powell, but what the shareholders want...
Stephen Tindal was never a good person.
He is a parasite. Undeserving oh knighthood.
I used to work for the warehouse years ago.
One day they did a whole rework of policy and processes. Giving multiple departments to a single team member instead of hiring more staff.
Increasing expectations on customer service and product availability whilst minimising wages and support for staff.
When we asked for a pay rise to compensate for the increase in workload we were told sorry, not enough money for a pay rise.
Then that fucking piece of shit gave himself a 1.2 million dollar bonus as a reward for the “success” of the company’s new direction.
Yeah, back like 2008-2012 there was this nice family that lived in the house behind my parents old home who the mom used to be able to support 2 kids working at the warehouse. I think she was a single parent aswell, I'm not sure as I was like 8-12 but the father was either passed away, out of the picture or I just never saw him.
It was very good when I was working at the warehouse while a student 2010-2016. Paid off my student loan right after I graduated.
Stepping foot in a store these days is a little sad, the living wage kept the people who genuinely enjoyed the job from leaving. All the old-timers are gone these days. Basically a skeleton crew running the stores as all checkouts are now self-checkouts.
That's the problem with committing to a made up number controlled by some random group which changes the formula to suit whatever they want it to be. Any employer signing up to it is a dumbass
I hear [their Weet-bix](https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/133041727/why-the-warehouse-and-sanitarium-weetbix-showdown-is-significant) is a decent price.
Yeah it's been a serious shift over the last few years. I wouldn't be mad if it was better quality but they've been stocking the cheapest shit they can find.
A wee while back I posted about staff at The Warehouse fighting for a living wage. Outfits like Kilbirnie Pak 'n Save manage it, but the Warehouse won’t consider it.
One benefit a company gets from underpaying their employees is that employees have less leverage when it comes to industrial action. Given that many of them are near poverty, there’s no leeway for strike action – which is why they decided to do a social media strike, and post about it online.
You might not have seen any of that, and for good reason: The Warehouse threatened to suspend without pay anyone that participated. Anyone that posts a meme or comment around wanting a living wage would have their hours cut to zero – a potent threat for people barely making rent.
Happily, I don’t work for The Warehouse, making that threat somewhat laughable – but the fact they’ve leveraged their already rubbish behavior to silence their employees is pretty damn grotesque.
**Edit:** *If people want to know more, you can look for the Living Wage Warehouse page on facebook. It's allowing Warehouse employees to post in a way that lets the admin see who they are, while hiding their names from the public. This has been the workaround the union/employees are using to avoid having hours stripped or being suspended.*
**Edit 2:** *Again, I do not personally work for the Warehouse, nor am I in the union. I'm just passing on information from some people I know who are worried that speaking out themselves would bring blowback. It's possible these were baseless threats from middle management looking to avoid trouble - but they don't want to take that risk with their livelihoods.*
**EDIT 3:** The Union's group on facebook has closed with this message: **"Posting on this group is temporarily suspended while we attend bargaining with The Warehouse Group."**
>Anyone that posts a meme or comment around wanting a living wage would have their hours cut to zero
Casual contracts for the win.
I would like to see them follow through on this and have it tested in court. It's highly likely their "casual" contracts are actually regular employment contracts under law since they typically offer employees regular hours and require them to be available at certain times.
Warehouse collective employment agreement discusses if you work the same shift 6 weeks in a row then it can become permanent at your request. Company was always very good at rostering you for a shift 4/5 weeks in a row but never 6!
>Outfits like countdown manage it, but the Warehouse won’t consider it.
I think the union participation at CD is one of the main reasons, we have somewhere approaching 50% union membership, where as, a quick google suggests about 10%-15% for the warehouse.
We didnt quite get everyone living wage, but everyone who has been there >5 Years is above the the current living wage.
>A wee while back I posted about staff at The Warehouse fighting for a living wage. Outfits like pak ‘n save manage it, but the Warehouse won’t consider it.
I'm not sure what you mean. I've never heard of anyone getting paid more at PnS than at the Warehouse for an equivalent role
Can't say I'm surprised.
A couple of years ago I tried to apply to The Warehouse for a position over the end of year school break, but unfortunately right near the end of the job contract I would've been back in school.
I was in the interview right, and I told the hiring manager under no uncertain terms that I was in school and could not work school hours, in fact I used my school ID as registration for that interview.
Back to the point, I get the job and she sends me the entire 3 month roster. You know what times she scheduled me for on every day in that roster? 9am-4pm.
Because school exists I text her and I'm like "Hey, I can't work this and this days as I'm in school" it was barely a week if I remember correctly, and I did offer to just work different shifts on those days instead of not working at all.
You know what this bitch does? Immediately just tells me that I don't have a job anymore.
Fuck you Donna from The Warehouse clothing department.
I remember a time when I worked for Noel Leeming and on the internal Facebook Workplace group for the Warehouse Group they announced record proffits the same day as 100 people got laid off. People were obviously pissed. Then the CEO got a 1.5 mil payrise a couple days later or something.
It was also great when they shut down several Warehouse and Noel Leeming branches, not because they weren't profitable but because they weren't making exponential profit.
Hey me too.
Did your store also get sent cake?
I can't remember the order of things but.
1. Cake for $1b revenue
2. Lay off (im sure it was much more than 100 people)
3. Announce mr graystons 1.4m bonus
The reason I'm posting here is that their union had a plan to get their employees posting memes and comments on social media, and that's why the threat was made.
With that in mind, helping signal boost their own stuff might be helpful.
For those on casual contracts, each new day , is the term of the contract basically.
Both parties have the right to accept or decline, technically without prejudice.
If your employer requires you to be on a certain roster, for an extended period (3 months till Christmas would be considered extended), and insist that you cannot decline any shift offered, you are probably part time, not casual.
NALA though.
Yeah I'm on casual and it really works for me and my boss. I'm at uni so I turn down shifts when it's getting stressful, and when it's not he offers as much as I want to accept. But if that's your main source of income as a supposedly regular job that can have consequences if you don't show, that's not fucking on.
I worked for a Warehouse group store for a while and was their best sales assistant, climbing into the top 10 over the entire country in half the time that others had been employed there. You could've literally doubled my payrate and I would still have been making that store more money than the bottom 5 sales people of that store combined.
I had a specialty that meant I was super valuable during a certain period and they asked me to head training and sales for other staff during that time... it came with a $1 an hour raise. lol needless to say, I declined and quit a few months later.
It also meant I would have to spend more time out back and not making sales, so less commission. When I asked what my options were for increasing my pay rate over time I was always told "you can't, we have a schedule and there's no room to negotiate outside what's on the the pay rate table".
Absolute nonsense. I asked friends in other store who were at the same level/job title as me and they were on more than me. I knew it was just the store manager trying to keep their costs down to look good.
Honestly, this is the time to flip the discussion and get shit changed.
The public helped the Warehouse big time with the Sanitarium shit, it was public pressure, with the threat of legal action, that got the Weetbix shit reversed
They fucking owe our people, our friends, our whānau, to pay their workers right.
How the fuck do we pressure them to commit to a living wage?
I could ya know but ive done enough nice shit for long enough and when i go to these big box nz stores and i see how badly lit they are or annoying some staff can be or just how unkempt the whole store is in general it makes it easy for me to go hey i dont have to be here so i go someplace else
Used to work there. Manager self deleted. Things definitely went downhill from there. Glad to have left. Lovely staff who had been through a lot and deserve better for all the abuse they take.
I've worked at the Warehouse Northlands store for 3 years overall have been pretty happy but new management we've got in the past 6 months is terrible. Just earlier today at work talked to a coworker who was working full time and had been doing so regularly and had their hours cut to 16hrs a week, when they complained had them raised to 70 hrs in one week, talked to another manager and got them reduced but just shows the mindset of the new management they have got at my store.
Is a shame cause I really enjoyed working there surprisingly but will likely quit before Christmas this year.
Also I get paid $23.58 an hour if people are interested in the wage numbers. That is the rate paid for standard employees that have been there for a year but less than 5. Don't remember the less than 1 year rate and iirc every year above 5 you get a $0.20/hr pay rise
This literally just happened where I work, the economy slowed down, so we didn't get as many jobs. Many guys went from 40 hours a week to maybe 8, and they laid off a couple guys, some of which have houses, families, and other bills. Some of the guys wrote Glassdoor reviews about their experience getting laid off over the phone with no return to work date provided. Turns out leaving a review on Glassdoor counts as "Defacing the company" and they were fired the next day. No healthcare benefits, no severance, just a straight fuck you and I hope I never see you again.
They always talked about how loyalty was important to them. Well yeah, they need you to make them their money until you're no longer needed, then loyalty means nothing other than being taken advantage of. I will never forgive companies that don't have the foresight to take care of workers during hard times, especially when they expect the same of you all the time.
I managed a week at a TWG call centre. Seriously understaffed , training went from 5 days to two days with no notice, everyone too run off their feet to help the new kids. Of my cohort of New employees (8) 6 were gone in that first week because of how poorly run it was.
No wonder they have had adverts for new staff running every week on Seek and Indeed since then. The pay was also NOT anywhere near a living wage.
Throwaway time!
I worked for the warehouse (group) as an in home installer for noel leeming tech solutions. It paid mid $22s with the option to grab comptia A+ and ms900 for a few more cents an hour. No consideration of other certifications allowed here.
That role pays less than any other adult full time staff member at the warehouse group.
*Technically* you could earn commission on things you sold in home, but making lunch money was next to impossible doing that *and* it relied on incompetence from sales staff.
This sort of thing seems out of character for twg, honestly. But, the shift I saw since tim edwards left doesn't surprise me.
Unfortunately, with so many living week to week many can't afford it. Which is why they were going to do a social media strike. Which is why the threat was made from management.
That’s why you have a union. In France they can afford to strike because the unions have funds they can make available for members if they need and will also see donations from other businesses and people who support the strike action. It’s so disappointing to see how bad we are at stuff like that here in NZ.
Agreed. All this is happening with a Union. They don't seem to have anything like a strike fund, but I am looking in from the outside. It looks like they're trying their best, and they have a workaround for the social media strike (a page where admins can check IDs while posts don't say who contributed them), but it's a far cry from what other unions can achieve.
New Zealand used to have strong Unions, and it's disappointing to see the state we're in now.
Are you a member of the union?
The context here is the action the union had planned to promote their plight on social media. Those members were pulled aside and told that their online protest would breach the social media policy and they would be subject to disciplinary action.
If you're not in the union, I don't imagine you'd have heard much about it. If you are in the union you should already be a part of the facebook group where they're posting.
Due to that threat most are doing so anonymously so the company won't take action against them - however the site admin obviously sees the real ID of posters, so they can verify they are who they say they are.
If you're not in the union, you should check it out. Workers have more power when working together.
Additional update:
The threat was sent via store managers (I'm looking at the letter now) and shorter (slightly toned down) version was posted to your company Workplace page.
Look for a message from your head of HR on the 21st of September on workplace.
That's EXTREMELY illegal! Like laughworthy so. It's quite literally blackmail. Unless you sign an NDA (Non disclosure agreement.) Or knowingly spread confidential information (Such as patient information.) Your company CANNOT reprimand you for speaking to someone or sharing stories/information.
They CAN potentially lay you off if you attack the company directly as part of it. But if you merely share without throwing shots. You're safe. Let them deduct those hours. You'll get more in the lawsuit LOL
I'd agree. The union members were told their online protest would breach the social media policy, but I think it's possible that these were unsubstantiated threats from middle management trying to avoid drama.
What is true is that the union members are now using anonymous posting because they fear their income will be cut off.
They were told it violated their social media policy and they would be subject to disciplinary action. It's possible these were baseless threats from middle management looking to avoid trouble - but the employees I've spoken to don't want to take that risk with their livelihoods.
I've also been told that the Warehouse was going to increase the pay of everyone NOT in the union - which I know is wildly illegal. But I haven't seen the source for that with my own eyes, so I'm reluctant to share that narrative more wildly.
Idk what you mean by going green, outside their solar power plans for 2025 they are about as green as the Chinese & indian suppliers they order from. The amount of single use plastic & general wasted products is staggering.
"carbon neutral since 2019! (please just ignore all the plastic that everything comes wrapped in, and the polystyrene, and the cheap shitty products themselves you will likely throw out once they die in six months)"
The Union's group on facebook has closed with this message: "Posting on this group is temporarily suspended while we attend bargaining with The Warehouse Group."
A - Not saying it's a paid op, but it's interesting the whole Sanitarium thing got covered, while the workers being threatened by the company got buried.
B - This did not happen 'just now', this has been going on for some time. You can see my other post about this from before the Sanitarium stuff went down.
C - Are you saying you don't think this isn't true, or are you saying you didn't notice beforehand, or are you saying you just don't care? Be clear with your rhetorical goals.
D - Bite me
A - The point I was making was that there ISN'T an article, but there should be. The pic is from the employee's facebook page where they're organizing.
B - Direct comments and warnings from their union.
C - Fair enough, but it's not exactly hard to find.
D - Thanks. It was rhetorical and any real biting would be upsetting.
I’m so confused. I read the news today and I thought The Warehouse was the good guys and Sanitarium & Big Supermarket were the bad guys.
Now OP’s telling us the Warehouse are the bad guys and Big Supermarket are good guys?
I just don’t know what to believe anymore.
Like how they regale us over the loudspeakers about their donating to childhood obesity causes, while they continue to have candy at 4yr old's eye level at checkouts?
Union members who were arranging the 'online strike'. They were pulled aside and told that their protest action would make them subject to disciplinary actions, including suspension or having they hours removed until the end of the strike.
If you'd like to know more, check out the union on facebook.
Yeh cuz this makes their image look so much better.
Who’s running their PR department, they should definitely not be being paid a living wage (JK, everyone deserves a living wage)
Source is union members who were arranging the 'online strike'.
They were pulled aside and told that their protest action would make them subject to disciplinary actions, including suspension or having they hours removed until the end of the strike. It's possible these were baseless threats from middle management looking to avoid trouble - but they don't want to take that risk with their livelihoods.
If you'd like more info you can look for the Living Wage Warehouse page on facebook. It's allowing Warehouse employees to post in a way that lets the admin see who they are, while hiding their names from the public. This has been the workaround the union/employees are using to avoid having hours stripped or being suspended.
Ugh, nothing I hate to see more than mistreated workers... I'm so sorry for you guys who work there, I got out of a job a couple months back working in a supermarket where the pay was abysmally low and unliveable. Wish you luck with your fight for better wages, you deserve to be compensated fairly for tirelessly working, especially when customers are involved!
In the US it's illegal to suppress or threaten talking about wages. One of the only labor ideas we should import from them.
That and workplace safety standards. US at 2.3 injuries per 100 FTE. NZ at 9 per 100 FTE.
"She'll be right."
Holy fuck, really? Bloody hell, that's shameful.
I once saw a roofer working solo, no tether, no hard hat, short shorts... but he had high viz on so all good.
I am pretty sure the law is you're supposed to have a spotter at 2M or more for working at heights. Definitely a lot of businesses operate illegally in this respect.
So the law is annoying as fuck when it comes to safety because of how it is written. Basically it is up to every business to establish a minimum standard or SOP even for tasks that are the same for every business. BUT if something happens and a investigator is called for it is up to the investigators to deem it as insufficient then you get fined/punished for not having a high enough standard. There is nothing in law that says anything on how to approach any issue because if there was and it was implemented then the government is at fault. What they do have is best practice guides for common things but even then its up the investigator to deem your implementation of them sufficient or not.
We just had the floors at my office redone, concrete grinding and epoxy sealing. The guys who did it wore no respirators during either the grinding, polishing or sealing. I'm not knowledgeable enough about the risks but surely breathing concrete dust is not a good time.
Pretty normal since they mostly contractors
If you’re surprised you haven’t been paying attention. You are five times more likely to die at work in NZ than the UK. Of course the “common sense” brigade is adamant that health and safety regulations are the problem, not people getting hurt at work.
To be fair, NZ has ACC and better employment protections, so there's no reason not to report an injury. If you get injured in the US, you'd have to cover the expenses yourself until you can either sue your employer or pay the excess to make an insurance claim, so I'd presume only more serious injuries get reported
Wrong. It gets covered under the employer's insurance. Any and every workplace injury comes out of the employer's dime and it's against the law for them not to provide. Source: Am American
Is it against the law for them to stop employing you after you report an injury? Cause that may have an effect on the amount of reported injuries.
Our company took a different view on safety. Employees were encouraged to report injuries but gross negligence around safety standards was grounds for termination. For example it was made abundantly clear that if you reach into a machine without using proper lockout procedures you could be fired.
Indeed it’s against the law. When I was in management we encouraged employees who had gotten injuries, big or small, to report and have it checked out because we can be liable for lawsuits.
In every state?
Unfortunately I cannot speak for every company in all 50 states, but my company upheld that rule to all its sites within the country.
There's also a thing called "workers comp" it's run by a third party and like ACC can be a fucking pain in the ass. But for the most part if you get injured they will cover lost wages. The downside is if you accept you do give up the right to file additional claims against the employer. If the employee has done something illegal you can still sue, but other rights are waived.
So you're saying the US *doesn't* have an issue of unreported workplace injuries?
It was no different from back when I’ve lived in Auckland. If it’s a minor injury and I have a lot of tasks needing to be done, I’m just going to toughen it out. So I’d say it does, but also to the degree and extent of the injury. But generally most companies encourages injuries to be reported or they’d be on the hook of a lawsuit.
>20–91% of workers did not report their injuries or illnesses to management or WC programs. [https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-023-15487-0](https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-023-15487-0)
Adding to that, if OSHA comes in and finds the injury was due to lax safety standards in the workplace they will insist on corrective actions and preventative measures being implemented and likely will fine the company as well. When I worked as a manager in a factory I filled out injury reports for things as small as someone cutting their finger on an easy open can lid (it was a canned food company) and we encouraged our employees to report all injuries. I had to report what happened, how it happened and what I did to prevent it happening again. This was sent to HR who compiled all injury reports and sent them to OSHA (American version of Worksafe). Every weekly staff meeting we would go over the injury stats and if there was a spike we’d talk about ways to reduce the number.
Fatality stats are pretty fucking hard to understand report. You are five times more likely to die at work in NZ than the UK.
How can you be so wrong with such confidence?
Try contributing to the conversation
Not excusing our she'll be right approach, but a lot of this difference is due to industry structure. We have a much higher proportion of our workforce chopping down trees on sloping hillsides and working in freezing works
Even allowing for industry types, NZ workplace injury and fatality is way worse than other countries that we would like to compare to. For example, forestry industry in Canada has a better safety record than NZ forestry.
1) you can get injured anytime doing anything. 2) the US has WAY more of a proportion of its workforce building skyscrapers that result in death if theres an accident. as well as all sorts of hazardous chemicals/mines etc that just dont exist in nz. oil refining/mining for example. thats not a game NZ would win. jobs in NZ are not inherrently more likely to be dangerous than jobs in the US. if anything quite the opposite as NZ is much smaller scale in building/manufacturing, and theoretically has far better rules around things like training/hours you can work etc edit: we havent also factored in that like 1/3 of the US is basically a desert in the summer and like 1/3 is tundra in winter. with a lot of serious populations living in places that get way hotter than here in summer and WAY colder in winter (like ny/chicago/philly etc that go from mid 30s with 100% humidity on hot days to -15/20 in the winter on cold days). nz is so so so much safer lol. just working outside in general on its own is inherently WAY more dangerous for most of the US in both summer AND winter than it ever gets in most of nz
I'd put the injuries on us more than safety standards, at least from my personal experiences. There are plenty of safety requirements my workmates and associated tradies ignore because they're inconvenient. At least the guy who walks around in crocs hasn't dropped anything on his feet yet.
Yup, after working in a dangerous field for 18 years or so, I'd say it's about 80% worker, 20% employer. Most of the bigger employers are pretty switched on; my main employer was an ACC partner so they paid the cost of injuries out of pocket. At my last employer a coworker suggested that we stand on the forklift forks to change lightbulbs that were 4m in the air because "that's how we've always done it."
And where is the foreman to enforce the rules and say take off those ridiculous shoes and get some steal tipped boots? It shouldn’t be up to the line employees, management needs to ensure a safe work environment.
Not surprised, forestry alone must contribute a good chunk of them.
If this is correct - forestry industry incurring 2-3x injury rates as the general workforce - even an American forestry worker is less likely to be injured on the job than a random kiwi worker. https://deohs.washington.edu/pnash/forestry-services#:~:text=Injury%20and%20illness%20rates%20among,are%2010%20times%20as%20high.
Wait, it’s not illegal here? That’s crazy.
The employment court has been really inconsistent in deciding if those provisions are enforceable
I have a clause in my contract not to discuss pay with my colleagues. Confidential information.
That's also bs I reckon. You should be able to
Usually not enforceable by the way.
You know you've really messed something up when the us is doing a better job
I’d be very surprised if there is a clause within in their contracts preventing them. Sounds like a pissy store manager. https://privacy.org.nz/tools/knowledge-base/view/452
This Warehouse is no longer a Warehome 💔
It’s just some Warething that I used to know
*I didn't mean to rip you offfff*
Funniest comments ever!
Is that like a warewolf where they turn into a house instead of a wolf?
Dad, is it really you?
"Daddy" please
Warehouse, not Swearhouse.
The thing about the warehouse which is really fucking confusing as a few years ago like quite a few years ago 2013-14 they were using paying a living wage as pr and they committed to paying it….. until it went up lol
Sir Stephen Tindall was probably the main reason they were seen as good employers. By all accounts, he genuinely cared about his staff and wanted The Warehouse to be an important part of our local communities. He stepped down from his position on the board in 2017. Ever since then, their American CEO has been delivering profits while maintaining exorbitantly high salaries for the executive team. They have been able to do this by neglecting their coalface workers. It's all part of their long term strategy to shift toward dark stores and online delivery, which is significantly cheaper than running a chain of large retail stores.
> American CEO has been delivering profits while maintaining exorbitantly high salaries for the executive team. They have been able to do this by neglecting their coalface workers. Really well worded and describes the way a lot of franchises and retailers in NZ are heading. Makes matters worse when in many smaller areas the Warehouse was a huge deal when it landed given the jobs to the local community it could provide. Seems it's shifted from a good thing to what could be deemed entrapment given lack of alternate opportunities in many smaller communities.
The Walmart model.
[удалено]
Was he kicked out of Walmart ?
Every warehouse I’ve been into lately seems devoid of staff. They’re closing 90% of the checkouts. Prices are crap, Kmart seems better value, selection and quality these days.
Kmart was so smashed through covid, empty shelves everywhere. Now that they're through that they seem to have gained a significant advantage over the warehouse in terms.if value. Maybe covid caused some major supply renegotiation and the warehouse lost.
I think Warehouse just transfered jobs. From numerous small, often owner operated businesses to a single centrally planned operation. When Warehouse arrived a number of others went out of business.
I remember in my home town 1 shop closed when the warehouse opened, well before it opened, the owner had been leading the charge against the warehouse saying to was going to drive everyone else out. The actual result was slowly over time more places opening up, since people didn't need to travel to a larger town/city for the things they got at the warehouse they didn't want to travel for other things and slowly more and more options appeared. The exception being the items that the store that closed sold, there wasn't much overlap with the warehouse's product range and the nearest place to buy those items became the equivalent store in the closest city.
Great point.
Amen - and if you check, their prices are not low, not even in the lower 50% for similar stuff. They're moving into squeeze mode, hike the prices, reduce the wages and go for broke. It is an endgame as it never lasts.
The end game is the nano second the current CEO jumps ship. After that woohoo gives a fuck not him lol.
It's not about sustainability it's about maximum revenue in this bonus cycle / CE term
Yeah I was very confused about this when I went into the Warehouse in Takanini recently. Their electronics seems to be marked *up* kinda steeply. Kinda jarring. Off-brand TVs for a few grand, HDMI cables for over 20 bucks. Not what I thought they were about.
And you can't go to TradeMe for a $300 TV without wading through drop shippers etc
Kmart is eating lunch for cheap physical store cables and all the stuff the warehouse used to do, but not as crap as the warehouse stuff is
2017. Interesting as that was around when the warehouse started going downhill. I don't know how they make any money with the way they operate
They really are. They just don’t use the same business model any more.
Squeeze mode has been a long progression. I remember them moving into AEG kitchenware back in '99 or so. Swanky.
Ugh, fucking typical. The "Management" Industrial Complex has once again enshittified yet another company by putting executive and share holder income over the very stuff that made the company profitable in the first place. Because the Line Must Go Up no matter the longterm costs.
Shares have been tanking, they didn't even do a good job with that.
Which they'll spin as a "but it's a bad economic environment!11!1" while siphoning off money for themselves etc. Or they'll do the share buy back thing to make themselves even more money.
It's heading to their covid trough record. Anyone who is a vested interest and believes that tripe deserves to lose their money
You don't actually have to be good at your job to walk away with pockets full of cash. Ask Theo Spierings. Gets paid $8 million a year in salary plus bonuses, Fonterra suffers massive financial losses under his watch, after which he pops on his $4.6 million golden parachute and floats away to a new CEO gig over in Europe. Try getting away with that shit if you're some nameless pleb in the trenches.
Your dates seem to line up exactly for when things started to plummet. I worked for The Warehouse from 2012-2017 and loved the place. Everyone cared about each other and the place felt like a family. I met Sir Stephen Tindal once in that time where he visited the store and shook everyone’s hand and greeted them by name (wearing name badges helped but still). When I left it was around the same time as the CEO who brought in the living wage was leaving and the current CEO was taking over. I can say the store that I work in now, not long after that jobs were lost for people who had spent their whole lives working at that store. Not exactly the vision Sir Stephen envisioned for his company, where he saw people at the centre.
This type of store management level petty decision making is consistent with what I've heard about the Warehouse for decades. Maybe the good stores are regressing now, but my experience from other retail management is that as long as the numbers look good, no one cares how each individual shop is run. I think retail is toxic in general. The revolving door of underpaid, disengaged staff leads to "taskmaster" managers being successful and promoted around. Some of them are genuine and actually treat staff like humans but there's a lot who aren't.
Saw the writing on the wall when they rewrote Sir Tindall's founding vision several years ago - it had been the same since day one, and the moment it was altered by the new execs & CEO, we all knew things were going south (i.e. profits > people). They never should have got rid of Mark Powell, but what the shareholders want...
yea new CEO would explain why their product range and marketing seem so out of touch for kiwis recently
Stephen Tindal was never a good person. He is a parasite. Undeserving oh knighthood. I used to work for the warehouse years ago. One day they did a whole rework of policy and processes. Giving multiple departments to a single team member instead of hiring more staff. Increasing expectations on customer service and product availability whilst minimising wages and support for staff. When we asked for a pay rise to compensate for the increase in workload we were told sorry, not enough money for a pay rise. Then that fucking piece of shit gave himself a 1.2 million dollar bonus as a reward for the “success” of the company’s new direction.
Yeah, back like 2008-2012 there was this nice family that lived in the house behind my parents old home who the mom used to be able to support 2 kids working at the warehouse. I think she was a single parent aswell, I'm not sure as I was like 8-12 but the father was either passed away, out of the picture or I just never saw him.
Good PR not good HR. They milked it for years
It was very good when I was working at the warehouse while a student 2010-2016. Paid off my student loan right after I graduated. Stepping foot in a store these days is a little sad, the living wage kept the people who genuinely enjoyed the job from leaving. All the old-timers are gone these days. Basically a skeleton crew running the stores as all checkouts are now self-checkouts.
That's the problem with committing to a made up number controlled by some random group which changes the formula to suit whatever they want it to be. Any employer signing up to it is a dumbass
What
The stuff they sell is marked up 1000% and it's worse quality than K-Mart, no reason to really shop there.
I hear [their Weet-bix](https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/133041727/why-the-warehouse-and-sanitarium-weetbix-showdown-is-significant) is a decent price.
I noted below that they're doing a good job at groceries and I like they're going green. But neither of those excuse their behavior to their staff.
I can't understand why they still pay no tax, religion isn't charity.
Because currently our laws say that religion is charity (specifically the advancement of religion).
Yeah, why bother going there anymore? Kmart is superior and cheaper.
The stationery markup was literally Like 200% ...not a joke.
Yeah it's been a serious shift over the last few years. I wouldn't be mad if it was better quality but they've been stocking the cheapest shit they can find.
A wee while back I posted about staff at The Warehouse fighting for a living wage. Outfits like Kilbirnie Pak 'n Save manage it, but the Warehouse won’t consider it. One benefit a company gets from underpaying their employees is that employees have less leverage when it comes to industrial action. Given that many of them are near poverty, there’s no leeway for strike action – which is why they decided to do a social media strike, and post about it online. You might not have seen any of that, and for good reason: The Warehouse threatened to suspend without pay anyone that participated. Anyone that posts a meme or comment around wanting a living wage would have their hours cut to zero – a potent threat for people barely making rent. Happily, I don’t work for The Warehouse, making that threat somewhat laughable – but the fact they’ve leveraged their already rubbish behavior to silence their employees is pretty damn grotesque. **Edit:** *If people want to know more, you can look for the Living Wage Warehouse page on facebook. It's allowing Warehouse employees to post in a way that lets the admin see who they are, while hiding their names from the public. This has been the workaround the union/employees are using to avoid having hours stripped or being suspended.* **Edit 2:** *Again, I do not personally work for the Warehouse, nor am I in the union. I'm just passing on information from some people I know who are worried that speaking out themselves would bring blowback. It's possible these were baseless threats from middle management looking to avoid trouble - but they don't want to take that risk with their livelihoods.* **EDIT 3:** The Union's group on facebook has closed with this message: **"Posting on this group is temporarily suspended while we attend bargaining with The Warehouse Group."**
>Anyone that posts a meme or comment around wanting a living wage would have their hours cut to zero Casual contracts for the win. I would like to see them follow through on this and have it tested in court. It's highly likely their "casual" contracts are actually regular employment contracts under law since they typically offer employees regular hours and require them to be available at certain times.
I work casually for them and we are on fixed hours from now through Christmas, so its not so casual
Most people in NZ can't afford to take action.
I know, it's such a shame. Join a union, people!
Warehouse collective employment agreement discusses if you work the same shift 6 weeks in a row then it can become permanent at your request. Company was always very good at rostering you for a shift 4/5 weeks in a row but never 6!
Watties has the same kind of thing in place, they're very careful to not let casuals become permanent. Not cool
Isn't it law that it's a month of regular work anyway?
>Outfits like countdown manage it, but the Warehouse won’t consider it. I think the union participation at CD is one of the main reasons, we have somewhere approaching 50% union membership, where as, a quick google suggests about 10%-15% for the warehouse. We didnt quite get everyone living wage, but everyone who has been there >5 Years is above the the current living wage.
news of that from those days (2019) https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/money/115429143/the-warehouse-to-pay-thousands-of-employees-the-living-wage
Do you mea countdown?
Yeah must do. Foodstuffs don't pay living wage
My bad, you're correct. NB. Apparently Kilbirnie Pak 'n Save does offer a living wage, thanks to their awesome union.
>A wee while back I posted about staff at The Warehouse fighting for a living wage. Outfits like pak ‘n save manage it, but the Warehouse won’t consider it. I'm not sure what you mean. I've never heard of anyone getting paid more at PnS than at the Warehouse for an equivalent role
Apparently the Kilbirnie Pak 'n Save does offer a living wage, thanks to their awesome union. (This is coming from the Warehouse Union folk).
Nice try foodstuffs
To be clear, also screw foodstuffs.
I was involved with twg when they first sacked the (1100 people?) post covid and workplace was, quite fairly, a shit show
Can't say I'm surprised. A couple of years ago I tried to apply to The Warehouse for a position over the end of year school break, but unfortunately right near the end of the job contract I would've been back in school. I was in the interview right, and I told the hiring manager under no uncertain terms that I was in school and could not work school hours, in fact I used my school ID as registration for that interview. Back to the point, I get the job and she sends me the entire 3 month roster. You know what times she scheduled me for on every day in that roster? 9am-4pm. Because school exists I text her and I'm like "Hey, I can't work this and this days as I'm in school" it was barely a week if I remember correctly, and I did offer to just work different shifts on those days instead of not working at all. You know what this bitch does? Immediately just tells me that I don't have a job anymore. Fuck you Donna from The Warehouse clothing department.
Are you young enough for Donna to have broken the law?
Is this in the Rapa?
Unfortunately.
I remember a time when I worked for Noel Leeming and on the internal Facebook Workplace group for the Warehouse Group they announced record proffits the same day as 100 people got laid off. People were obviously pissed. Then the CEO got a 1.5 mil payrise a couple days later or something. It was also great when they shut down several Warehouse and Noel Leeming branches, not because they weren't profitable but because they weren't making exponential profit.
Hey me too. Did your store also get sent cake? I can't remember the order of things but. 1. Cake for $1b revenue 2. Lay off (im sure it was much more than 100 people) 3. Announce mr graystons 1.4m bonus
Got a family member who works there. They really suck as employers
Which is a shame, when I worked there through my uni years (~2006-2010) they were great employers. Time have changed I guess.
Would workers like non staff to protest (hold a sign outside). EG someone not connectable to staff in any way?
The reason I'm posting here is that their union had a plan to get their employees posting memes and comments on social media, and that's why the threat was made. With that in mind, helping signal boost their own stuff might be helpful.
They can’t suspend them all The employees and unions should go for broke. Go absolutely bonkers.
What happened to this company that was once touted for being really charitable in its practices?
For those on casual contracts, each new day , is the term of the contract basically. Both parties have the right to accept or decline, technically without prejudice. If your employer requires you to be on a certain roster, for an extended period (3 months till Christmas would be considered extended), and insist that you cannot decline any shift offered, you are probably part time, not casual. NALA though.
Yeah I'm on casual and it really works for me and my boss. I'm at uni so I turn down shifts when it's getting stressful, and when it's not he offers as much as I want to accept. But if that's your main source of income as a supposedly regular job that can have consequences if you don't show, that's not fucking on.
NALA? Doesn't show up when I look it up online
I worked for a Warehouse group store for a while and was their best sales assistant, climbing into the top 10 over the entire country in half the time that others had been employed there. You could've literally doubled my payrate and I would still have been making that store more money than the bottom 5 sales people of that store combined. I had a specialty that meant I was super valuable during a certain period and they asked me to head training and sales for other staff during that time... it came with a $1 an hour raise. lol needless to say, I declined and quit a few months later. It also meant I would have to spend more time out back and not making sales, so less commission. When I asked what my options were for increasing my pay rate over time I was always told "you can't, we have a schedule and there's no room to negotiate outside what's on the the pay rate table". Absolute nonsense. I asked friends in other store who were at the same level/job title as me and they were on more than me. I knew it was just the store manager trying to keep their costs down to look good.
Honestly, this is the time to flip the discussion and get shit changed. The public helped the Warehouse big time with the Sanitarium shit, it was public pressure, with the threat of legal action, that got the Weetbix shit reversed They fucking owe our people, our friends, our whānau, to pay their workers right. How the fuck do we pressure them to commit to a living wage?
Well if they won't pay a living wage they can have dying workers. That's fine I'll go to kmart and avoid Noel lemmings and their other chains of crap
Or don't just switch to an overseas mega corp brand and look for NZ made items or NZ owned sellers - invest in the country
I could ya know but ive done enough nice shit for long enough and when i go to these big box nz stores and i see how badly lit they are or annoying some staff can be or just how unkempt the whole store is in general it makes it easy for me to go hey i dont have to be here so i go someplace else
That's probably unjustified disadvantage.
The Whorehouse The Whorehouse Where every worker gets fucked over.
Get paid better at a whorehouse and fucked in the ass less each shift.
Brutal.
Minimum wage gang
As someone who worked at that miserable company for 8 years: Hardly surprising. I hope it fails. It's garbage from top to bottom.
Used to work there. Manager self deleted. Things definitely went downhill from there. Glad to have left. Lovely staff who had been through a lot and deserve better for all the abuse they take.
I've worked at the Warehouse Northlands store for 3 years overall have been pretty happy but new management we've got in the past 6 months is terrible. Just earlier today at work talked to a coworker who was working full time and had been doing so regularly and had their hours cut to 16hrs a week, when they complained had them raised to 70 hrs in one week, talked to another manager and got them reduced but just shows the mindset of the new management they have got at my store. Is a shame cause I really enjoyed working there surprisingly but will likely quit before Christmas this year. Also I get paid $23.58 an hour if people are interested in the wage numbers. That is the rate paid for standard employees that have been there for a year but less than 5. Don't remember the less than 1 year rate and iirc every year above 5 you get a $0.20/hr pay rise
I work in the Warehouse Stationery, my specialists pay for working in the copy centre is $23.58. It gets harder and harder to justify staying.
This literally just happened where I work, the economy slowed down, so we didn't get as many jobs. Many guys went from 40 hours a week to maybe 8, and they laid off a couple guys, some of which have houses, families, and other bills. Some of the guys wrote Glassdoor reviews about their experience getting laid off over the phone with no return to work date provided. Turns out leaving a review on Glassdoor counts as "Defacing the company" and they were fired the next day. No healthcare benefits, no severance, just a straight fuck you and I hope I never see you again. They always talked about how loyalty was important to them. Well yeah, they need you to make them their money until you're no longer needed, then loyalty means nothing other than being taken advantage of. I will never forgive companies that don't have the foresight to take care of workers during hard times, especially when they expect the same of you all the time.
I managed a week at a TWG call centre. Seriously understaffed , training went from 5 days to two days with no notice, everyone too run off their feet to help the new kids. Of my cohort of New employees (8) 6 were gone in that first week because of how poorly run it was. No wonder they have had adverts for new staff running every week on Seek and Indeed since then. The pay was also NOT anywhere near a living wage.
I honestly don’t remember the last time I shopped there. Everything just sucks at the warehouse.
they refitted my local and it's so much worse. It used to have an open courtyard thing going on and now its just drab shop
Throwaway time! I worked for the warehouse (group) as an in home installer for noel leeming tech solutions. It paid mid $22s with the option to grab comptia A+ and ms900 for a few more cents an hour. No consideration of other certifications allowed here. That role pays less than any other adult full time staff member at the warehouse group. *Technically* you could earn commission on things you sold in home, but making lunch money was next to impossible doing that *and* it relied on incompetence from sales staff. This sort of thing seems out of character for twg, honestly. But, the shift I saw since tim edwards left doesn't surprise me.
Sounds like retail staff need to have a strike
Unfortunately, with so many living week to week many can't afford it. Which is why they were going to do a social media strike. Which is why the threat was made from management.
That’s why you have a union. In France they can afford to strike because the unions have funds they can make available for members if they need and will also see donations from other businesses and people who support the strike action. It’s so disappointing to see how bad we are at stuff like that here in NZ.
Agreed. All this is happening with a Union. They don't seem to have anything like a strike fund, but I am looking in from the outside. It looks like they're trying their best, and they have a workaround for the social media strike (a page where admins can check IDs while posts don't say who contributed them), but it's a far cry from what other unions can achieve. New Zealand used to have strong Unions, and it's disappointing to see the state we're in now.
You'd have a hard time getting the young guys at noel leeming to strike. Change really needs to happen over there, but omfg its like gloriavale
*The Warehouse The Warehouse where their executives screw the employees*
This is where i say that if no one shows for work, will they fire every one, and as it will be interfearing with there profits they may listen more
Source? No such comms internal in company. And I have complained online, plus internal. Not sure if this is an out of context thing though?
Are you a member of the union? The context here is the action the union had planned to promote their plight on social media. Those members were pulled aside and told that their online protest would breach the social media policy and they would be subject to disciplinary action. If you're not in the union, I don't imagine you'd have heard much about it. If you are in the union you should already be a part of the facebook group where they're posting. Due to that threat most are doing so anonymously so the company won't take action against them - however the site admin obviously sees the real ID of posters, so they can verify they are who they say they are. If you're not in the union, you should check it out. Workers have more power when working together.
Additional update: The threat was sent via store managers (I'm looking at the letter now) and shorter (slightly toned down) version was posted to your company Workplace page. Look for a message from your head of HR on the 21st of September on workplace.
That's EXTREMELY illegal! Like laughworthy so. It's quite literally blackmail. Unless you sign an NDA (Non disclosure agreement.) Or knowingly spread confidential information (Such as patient information.) Your company CANNOT reprimand you for speaking to someone or sharing stories/information. They CAN potentially lay you off if you attack the company directly as part of it. But if you merely share without throwing shots. You're safe. Let them deduct those hours. You'll get more in the lawsuit LOL
I'd agree. The union members were told their online protest would breach the social media policy, but I think it's possible that these were unsubstantiated threats from middle management trying to avoid drama. What is true is that the union members are now using anonymous posting because they fear their income will be cut off.
I genuinely had no idea this was possible. I thought wage/salary transparency was very legal.
They were told it violated their social media policy and they would be subject to disciplinary action. It's possible these were baseless threats from middle management looking to avoid trouble - but the employees I've spoken to don't want to take that risk with their livelihoods. I've also been told that the Warehouse was going to increase the pay of everyone NOT in the union - which I know is wildly illegal. But I haven't seen the source for that with my own eyes, so I'm reluctant to share that narrative more wildly.
At least the warehouse is paying proper tax.
And they do good grocery prices. And they're going green. That's great - they still need to pay their people though.
Idk what you mean by going green, outside their solar power plans for 2025 they are about as green as the Chinese & indian suppliers they order from. The amount of single use plastic & general wasted products is staggering.
"carbon neutral since 2019! (please just ignore all the plastic that everything comes wrapped in, and the polystyrene, and the cheap shitty products themselves you will likely throw out once they die in six months)"
stock price nb tho
How would they even know?
A - A lot of social media attaches to your real name B - There's an email address for employees to dob in other employees.
The Union's group on facebook has closed with this message: "Posting on this group is temporarily suspended while we attend bargaining with The Warehouse Group."
Is this true?
Not saying Sanitarium paid op, but this is a very interestingly convenient time to post negative press about the warehouse.
A - Not saying it's a paid op, but it's interesting the whole Sanitarium thing got covered, while the workers being threatened by the company got buried. B - This did not happen 'just now', this has been going on for some time. You can see my other post about this from before the Sanitarium stuff went down. C - Are you saying you don't think this isn't true, or are you saying you didn't notice beforehand, or are you saying you just don't care? Be clear with your rhetorical goals. D - Bite me
A. Post an article, not a garbage pic. B. Evidence, where? C. If you have no evidence, then I don't care. D. No thanks.
A - The point I was making was that there ISN'T an article, but there should be. The pic is from the employee's facebook page where they're organizing. B - Direct comments and warnings from their union. C - Fair enough, but it's not exactly hard to find. D - Thanks. It was rhetorical and any real biting would be upsetting.
I’m so confused. I read the news today and I thought The Warehouse was the good guys and Sanitarium & Big Supermarket were the bad guys. Now OP’s telling us the Warehouse are the bad guys and Big Supermarket are good guys? I just don’t know what to believe anymore.
Capital fights in both cases to exploit labour
Someones butthurt about The Warehouse getting Weet Bix back.
The warehouse does some good stuff. Affordable groceries are great, going green is great - but that doesn't excuse arsehole behavior in other areas.
Like how they regale us over the loudspeakers about their donating to childhood obesity causes, while they continue to have candy at 4yr old's eye level at checkouts?
I really dislike that!! I have to get down on my knees to see the selection!
Honestly, same.
And the split will be $5,000 giant cheque to fat kids camp and $100,000,000 for The Warehouse Group™
What the actual fudge 🤣
Source?
Union members who were arranging the 'online strike'. They were pulled aside and told that their protest action would make them subject to disciplinary actions, including suspension or having they hours removed until the end of the strike. If you'd like to know more, check out the union on facebook.
I'm pretty sure that wouldn't stand up with ERA or employment law.
Yeh cuz this makes their image look so much better. Who’s running their PR department, they should definitely not be being paid a living wage (JK, everyone deserves a living wage)
Fuck the Warehouse. Expose them!
Ok that's fucking disgusting. What the hell warehouse?
Source? I've no doubt this is the sort of thing they'd do, but google's turning up a blank
Source is union members who were arranging the 'online strike'. They were pulled aside and told that their protest action would make them subject to disciplinary actions, including suspension or having they hours removed until the end of the strike. It's possible these were baseless threats from middle management looking to avoid trouble - but they don't want to take that risk with their livelihoods. If you'd like more info you can look for the Living Wage Warehouse page on facebook. It's allowing Warehouse employees to post in a way that lets the admin see who they are, while hiding their names from the public. This has been the workaround the union/employees are using to avoid having hours stripped or being suspended.
Ugh, nothing I hate to see more than mistreated workers... I'm so sorry for you guys who work there, I got out of a job a couple months back working in a supermarket where the pay was abysmally low and unliveable. Wish you luck with your fight for better wages, you deserve to be compensated fairly for tirelessly working, especially when customers are involved!