11 September 2017

Supermarket wrongly blames workers for empty chicken shelves

A notice on display at Pak’n Save Clendon blaming previous industrial action for no chicken being available has angered workers at the company’s distribution centre.

FIRST Union, the union representing the distribution centre workers, has documents showing the real reason for chicken not being available is that the company had contracted out the work to another company.

Lisa Fox, the spokesperson for the workers, described Pak’n Save’s attempt to blame workers taking strike action for their own failure as a “cynical tactic by a nasty company.”

“We’re in a dispute with Foodstuffs, the co-operative run by Pak’n Save and New World owners, over their repeated refusal to recognise long-serving labour hire staff as employees. Now Foodstuffs has outsourced its chicken distribution to a new company, probably as an attempt to make current staff worry about their job security,” said Fox.

“But now the new contractor can’t fulfil orders and the company is blaming their own staff.”

Last month workers at the former chicken distribution centre site staged two ‘walk-offs’ to protest the company’s failure to address labour-hire issue, but after returning to work the chicken delivery operation returned to normal before the company decided to outsource the work.

“We want the company to apologise to its workforce for the misleading statement and tell their customers the truth,” said Fox.

ENDS

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