In early August nearly ten thousand FIRST Union members working in Countdown and Woolworths across Aotearoa New Zealand voted in favour of strike action. The 2023 financial statement shows Woolworths made an AUD$3billion pre-tax profit, with Aotearoa New Zealand operations making up around 11% of total revenue. This is a company with money to spare. Serah Allison sat down with Woolworths workers Brent and Blake to learn about conditions on the job, and the strength of the campaign.

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What steps are First Union members taking to raise awareness about the industrial campaign?

Brent:  Yeah, so they put it to a vote last Friday: whether or not we want to take the steps that are currently being taken. So that’s wearing the sticker that’s got the words “understaffed, under-valued, and underpaid” with a sad version of the Woolworths logo which I thought was a fun little take: using their own iconography against them. My understanding is ten of the biggest stores are also putting little leaflets about this in people’s shopping bags to raise awareness. And speaking to media and, you know, like being able to just post about it on your socials ‘cause normally part of our collective agreement contract is that we can’t do that – you know say bad things about work or how stressed we are or any of that kind of stuff in a public space. But it’s currently like: “nope, you can do that.” It’s part of our strike action and the Union’s got our back. So it’s why we’re here talking with you.

Blake:   It’s quite nice seeing that it was an overwhelming majority of people voting for these actions.

The sentiment must be really strong amongst the union members?

Blake:  I’ve even been talking to some of the non-union members just trying to get them to join because a lot of people who aren’t union say they feel like: “all it does is take money from us.” And I’m like: “no, it gives all these layers of protection.” It had never clicked with them, the reason why somebody would be in a union, until this started. It’s not just about wages. It’s also about security. It’s about making sure that you feel safe at work, that we have enough staff on in case any number of people get ill. Especially during a time where there’s still COVID, there’s still flu. People get ill and everyone is overworked from understaffing. Then these non union members respond “oh wow, okay! How do I join?”

Brent: Yeah, because quite a few people just kind of don’t quite understand what unions do these days, but that’s a bit by companies’ design I’ve always felt.

What’s motivated everyone across the country to take this action?

Brent: I think a lot of us are just getting exhausted. I can speak personally to the fact that there’s things that I would normally take part in outside of work that I’ve constantly been cancelling, having to say: “I don’t have the energy to do this.” So it’s affecting me in my personal life. There’s also the fact that the company wants us to start picking up the ability to work in multiple departments and run post to post to post all in a single shift doing basically three people’s work but only for one person’s low pay.

Blake:  Yes, I personally have been getting drained trying to pick up the slack from them sending people away from our department to go help other departments because of how understaffed those departments are. Based off just how thinly spread out everybody was, one person would have to do three jobs and another person would also have to do three jobs, and so on. Instead of having enough staffing they just made it to where everybody was starting to get burned out. With my chronic illnesses and such I was thinking: “I can no longer do this.” It was getting to the point where I was thinking every morning: “God, I don’t want to wake up anymore. I don’t want to get up and do this. I can’t go on.”

Brent:  I used to be a duty manager at night, and everything Blake lists isn’t new. My understanding is the only difference is the workload of each of those individual tasks has gotten bigger because there’s more of that same thing expected for you to do throughout the night. For my role, now two people are expected to do what used to be like a three-person job. The reason we have a staffing issue is because they’re not wanting to hire people. They’re restricting our hours across the board. This is an especially common thread around both Easter and Christmas time, when Woolworths makes the most money, and they under-staff because they want to squeeze every last cent out of those who are working. And they’re not even willing to pay us for the trouble. Yeah, like we don’t even get any compensation for working unsociable hours. There’s pretty much no penalty rates.

Blake: There’s an ‘unsociable allowance’, which is one dollar per hour after 10pm.

Brent:  That’s the only thing. Working weekends, you don’t get anything extra or anything like that.

Blake: And that is actually part of the bargaining that’s going on.

Brent: Yeah, we’re trying to achieve a Living Wage, preferably. And we want some penalty rates and things because some of the shifts we have the hardest time getting people in for are the weekend and really crazy night or late shifts depending on the store. In the biggest stores they have people working from 10pm to 7am – graveyard shift. A penalty rate will help with hiring people to work those shifts.

It seems appropriate to have some compensation for staff for working unsociable hours.

Brent:  Yeah, and the staffing levels also have stuff to do with us feeling safer at work. Having more people around to do the job safer. People tend to take more risks when they’re understaffed. Instead of taking the time to go and grab the proper ladder to do a thing safely, they might try overextend themselves and then fall on their face and hurt themselves. Because we’ve got to be faster because we don’t have enough time to do everything.

It sounds like a really nasty grind they’ve got you in. Insufficient staff which loads up the amount of work that you’ve got to do and expecting you to multi-skill so loading up your capability for doing stuff without actually compensating you for that or for the unsocial hours you’re working.

Brent: And it all comes from a company raking in money and hand over fist: arguably one of the most profitable companies in the country. So while they’re really really raking it in for whoever at the top gets it, they’re paying us peanuts. And I know that’s the classic thing that happens all over the world with all kinds of companies and stuff, but it’s still bullshit.

You mentioned one of the claims was for a living wage. So, there are staff currently who are not getting a living wage?

Blake: Oh, absolutely, I would say that actually a majority of the staff don’t get the living wage. Woolworths have ruled out a living wage. I understand they’re a corporation, we live in a shit hole capitalist society. I know they don’t want to pay anybody and would rather it all be free labour, but you have to at least dangle that above people’s heads and give them hope. You can’t just flat out say that and not expect any pushback. We’re gonna fight back as much as we can.

Brent: I’m an experienced staff member, a duty manager who holds a duty manager licence to enable the store to sell liquor, I’m a trained first aider… so I’m more qualified than some staff and I still earn only just above the living wage.

Blake: Yeah, you can be in control of the store but you’re only just getting the living wage.

Brent: Oh yeah, many people won’t be getting even as much as I am so that’s bullshit. I can’t imagine trying to survive on even less than what I’ve got now. I will say that the response of the general public that have so far talked to me about the strike has been quite positive. A lot of people think it’s fair enough that we’re getting sick of being fleeced. Public support has been great. If hearing this makes people think “screw this I’m not gonna shop at Woolworths” well fair enough you know. Like, why give a company even more money when they’re not paying people right and stuff?

During COVID you were considered essential workers who were saving the country. What are your thoughts around that, and safety, and recognition?

Brent: We got these little pins and there was a bit else they did but it was pretty quickly forgotten about. I get people wanting to move on from that – it was a horrible time for everyone – but we literally had to put ourselves in harm’s way just to put food on our table and at the same time make sure other people could buy food for their table. It’s been a crazy last handful of years.

Blake: There’s ongoing concerns about safety for staff from illness, from harassment or from direct attack. Being understaffed is a huge stress.

Brent: The company preaches safety. They’re doing some things like more safety cones and cameras which is great, that’s cool, but they’re not giving us enough staff so we’re not stretched thin.

Blake: More numbers on at night would make people feel safer in general. Working during the night is one of the more dangerous times, and if there’s only two teenaged staff members on they’re not going to feel safe. That’s something that’s been brought up on top of just being stretched thin – having no solidarity in each department, not enough people to make everyone feel secure. That makes everyone feel unsafe and stressed.

Brent: One of the claims is asking for better staffing.

Blake: “Better staffing” as a general statement because it’s hard to define the perfect number of staff. It varies store to store.

Thanks for your time discussing this today. Is there anything else you want to say before we wrap up?

Brent: The three major points are: staffing and safety; penalty rates; and the living wage.

Blake: If you increase the wages and penalty rates, more people will be applying for the jobs. If they hired more people, we’d be safer and less stressed and more healthy.

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FIRST Union national organiser Ross Lampert said that the union is putting forward claims that are in line with other jobs that require people to work unsociable hours. At the time of this interview, industrial actions have consisted of non-compliance with media and social media policies, wearing a strike sticker on uniforms, and handing out flyers to customers in selected stores.