Warehouse restructure would affect 769 people nationally

First Union says The Warehouse told it that economic savings were not a priority of the restructure proposal.

The Warehouse Group has told First Union that its latest restructure has nothing to do with economic savings.

A spokesperson from The Warehouse Group said it discussed a proposal with its team last week which it had developed with input from a working group of store managers.

"It's a proposal only and we are seeking feedback from team members in our 93 stores before deciding on next steps, so it's not appropriate to comment further at this point."

First Union says the company told it that economic savings were not a priority of the proposal.

Hawke's Bay Today understands that nationally, the current number of workers impacted is 769 people, with the projected layoff figure sitting at 177.

The potential change of the restructure would see the loss of 1.3 FTEs (fulltime equivalents) in Napier and 3.6 in Hastings, affecting 10.6 people in hastings and 8.7 in Napier.

An FTE is the hours worked by one employee on a full-time basis. On an annual basis, an FTE is considered to be 2080 hours, which is calculated as eight hours per day by five work days per week.

First Union organiser Kate Davis had been making her way around the country visiting workers who would most likely be affected by the restructure.

"Those who work in cities are more likely to be reabsorbed into other jobs, but in the smaller regions it's a different story," Davis said.

"I'm doing about 30 meetings in eight days- is it even possible?

"I would like to think I can get to the regions, a lot of our organisers aren't going to be able to get through all their stores. But we will be consulting and visiting some of the regions."

Davis said the Warehouse had extended the report-back period until July 13.

"They've only extended the period for feedback by five days - for the amount of stores we need to get to in that time, it's going to be tough."

First Union would continue meeting Warehouse staff members in their regions within the given feedback period.