900 or so workers at Whitcoulls have helped pay for the sale of the troubled company by losing many of the conditions that they built up over the years.

The company was placed in administration (a form of receivership) in February this year because it was about to collapse, but the problems were mostly on the Australian side of the Tasman. Airport stores and the Bennetts stores were sold on relatively quickly.

On May 26 workers got the news that all except five of the remaining stores had been sold to the David and Anne Norman owned James Pascoe Group and would remain open.

The catch was workers who wanted to keep their jobs would have to sign an Individual Employment Agreement that waived rights to redundancy pay, reduced long service leave, reduced rest breaks from 15 to 10 minutes and took away overtime rates.

The Administrators claim the new owners told them that the zero redundancy pay in the new agreements was to put Whitcoulls workers onto the same footing as all other workers employed by the James Pascoe Group.

This is not true, as all Farmers workers (also owned by the James Pascoe Group) are entitled to redundancy pay if made redundant.

The Administrators also say that they had a huge struggle to get the new company to even cover sick leave and long service leave accumulations during the sale and purchase negotiations.

The NDU has negotiated a new collective agreement for its members at the Whitcoulls Distribution Centre in Mangere. They will keep their redundancy entitlements to at least the end of February 2012.

Many shop workers at Whitcoulls have called the NDU wanting to join the union.

The NDU is seeking legal advice on the options for the workers and will offer them membership after the sale of the company which was completed on June 20.

(Source: National Distribution Union)