Investors do not appear to be reacting significantly one way or another to the ongoing industrial action being undertaken by some workers at The Warehouse.
The union representing 2000 workers at The Warehouse said yesterday the company was now threatening non-union members' bonuses in response to a decision by workers to take industrial action.
National Distribution Union Warehouse campaign organiser Simon Oosterman said that was an unusual approach from the company.
"Warehouse workers have very real concerns about a continued deterioration of their conditions, and the company's response is to threaten to not to pay out non-union members' pay and bonuses after union workers spoke out."
Warehouse workers had endorsed creative industrial action to raise awareness among customers and the public about the deteriorating conditions at The Warehouse, he said.
Forsyth Barr broker Suzanne Kinnaird said it was fair to say that investors looked at all factors which affected company profitability before they made any investment.
"They also often look through short-term factors to longer-term drivers of profit such as, are the proposed changes good for the company in the longer term?
"The timing of the current industrial action - just before Christmas - in the current economic climate, is probably causing more angst than it might otherwise."
Ms Kinnaird noted the share price dropped on Wednesday from $4.15 to $4.08 but recovered yesterday to $4.11"Either way, no big movements, so it doesn't look like the market is reacting significantly," she said.
The Warehouse mainly rejects the union's claims and issued a lengthy statement yesterday outlining its position.
The company said it was in the first round of collective negotiations with the union when the union chose to end negotiations ahead of schedule, after just five and a-half days.
The Warehouse said it extended an offer to the union to continue negotiations and also offered to introduce external mediation.
To date, there had been no response from the union to that offer.
The Warehouse chief executive Ian Morrice said that in an economic environment where many retailers had offered minimal or no pay increases, his company had awarded a 3% pay increase to all waged employees from August 1, offering a starting wage of no less than $12.88 per hour.
The Warehouse had also increased its staff retention rates from 65.2% in the year ended July 2007 to 77.6% in the year ended July 2009.
During the past 18 months, The Warehouse had been implementing a programme called Project Invigorate that improved its business performance by operating stores more efficiently.
The programme was driven by customer research which found that The Warehouse needed to ensure it had the right people, in the right places, at the right times, doing the right things in order to meet customers' needs.
"This meant recognising the general shift towards weekend retail and ensuring experienced and skilled retail staff are available on the busiest days," he said.
An industry source told the Otago Daily Times it was not pay rates that were the cause of the latest industrial action, but the move by The Warehouse management to follow the Walmart model from the United States.
A lot of staff, who had been loyal and happy staff members for many years, felt let down that their hours of work were being changed without consultation.
The National Distribution Union previously did not have a presence in The Warehouse, which had its own in-house Peoples Union.
About 1000 of the 2000 NDU members had come from the in-house union but were still bound by that collective contract until June next year and could not take industrial action.
Members not bound by the in-house collective, including some in Dunedin, had voted to take industrial action against changing the hours of work.
The changes meant some long-time day workers were required to do two or more night shifts a week and take on weekend work.
That meant stores were short-staffed at some other peak times of trading.
Mr Morrice said consultation had been taking place for the past 18 months between management and about 7545 staff members.
Nearly 23,000 hours of consultation had taken place.
Meetings had involved discussions on what Project Invigorate was, why it was being initiated and how it would be introduced, inviting feedback at every stage.
Of the 7545 it staff consulted, The Warehouse was able to reach agreement with all but 28 people, who wished to involve independent mediation, and of 18 who had so far gone through the mediation process, only two cases had been left unresolved, Mr Morrice said.
