Union demands more time as axe looms over management jobs at The Warehouse

FIRST Union's Whanganui organiser, Kay Hearfield, said the consultation time was "outright ridiculous"

The union representing workers at The Warehouse has labelled the time the company has given staff to respond to a proposal to axe 14 jobs "unacceptable" and "outright ridiculous".

A FIRST Union organiser in Whanganui, Kay Hearfield said staff all around the country including at Whanganui's Trafalgar Square store were given the proposal last Thursday .

"What they're saying is: they are eliminating roles of duty managers, team leaders and supervisors," she said.

"We now have a list of our members that are affected on the stores that we cover."

She said there were 14 union members affected by the proposal.

A spokesperson for The Warehouse confirmed a proposal had been shared with their team and staff would be given until July 8 to submit feedback.

"We shared a proposal with our team yesterday which we developed with input from a working group of store managers. It's a proposal only and we are seeking feedback from our teams before deciding on next steps, so it's not appropriate to comment further at this point," the spokesperson said.

FIRST Union said The Warehouse was proposing to cut 180 jobs across 92 stores.

Hearfield said some staff had only been given until this Friday to respond to the proposal, while others had until the Sunday as mentioned by The Warehouse's spokesperson.

"The issue is the consultation process is extremely tight, in fact it's outright ridiculous," she said.

"For such a huge change in people's lives you need to allow a fair opportunity for workers to absorb what they're listening to, then allow them that opportunity to cite the paperwork and absorb that and then come back with some feedback."

Hearfield said staff were stressed about the proposal.

"There was no sort of indication. They feel a little bit blindsided.

"We're talking about long-serving people within this company ... any change to their lives affects their livelihood. We don't want the company to be bulldozing this through because that's not fair.

"If you were really genuine you would definitely put out a fair timeframe for people to ask questions and answers ... so they can actually put in fair feedback."

At the moment The Warehouse has a store manager, an assistant store manager, and several team leaders and supervisors in every store.

A spokesperson said the aim of the proposal was to simplify that structure.

It is believed FIRST Union's leadership team will meet with The Warehouse management in Auckland today .