I worked in retail at a number of different shops part time from about 1992-2000. A lot of that time was at Whitcoulls, at what I can see now was probably it’s most successful period. I remember they did a massive staff survey and discovered...
A) staff paid under (the then) minimum wage. I was on a high rate of $7.90 so you can imagine how low that was. B) staff employed at a younger age than company policy allowed C) Many shop staff were underpaid for the role they were in. D) Lots of arbitrary pay arrangements...
So they did a huge overhaul of the pay scales. There was no collective agreement - I never met another union member the whole time I worked there (about five years all up). But they came up with this pretty promising pay system where each role had a range and it was clear...
... what was entry level, what you could expect to be on with some experience, what those who were v good at that job could earn. It was a pretty good system, in the absence of a unionised workforce and proper transparency. I had been working there a while, had good ...
... performance reviews, had some extra responsibilities (helped prepare floats so had the safe combo, responsible for stamps, set breaks etc) so could have expected to be in the top of the range. Nope. Because while the pay system changed the wages budgets were not. ...
I would work as many hours as I could get over summer, on top of my regular weekend hours. But I was often the last to get extra hours because I was also more expensive, at $7.90. Store managers weren’t supported to do proper performance reviews either. ...
I think I had about six different branch managers in the time I was there. Our store had an unusually stable staff generally. Most of those managers were doing their best, and did ok in the circumstances. But a few weren’t great & didnt get support...
... I remember one who was struggling with the wages budget and shifts for Xmas who would go off to the bar to try to get her head around it, leaving me, a lowly teen part timer who lucky for her had the safe combo, in charge.
She should have been able to ask her manager for help. She was given a Herculean task of trying to fit the Xmas rosters into the wages budget. Did she deal with it well? No. We didn’t get our rosters until a week after they started, that time.
This is stuff from nearly thirty years ago, in a large company which had a proper HR department, access to at the time best POS, stock management and staff management systems available and still doing right by those in the shop floor was largely down to the store manager.
From what I see here &elsewhere, from people I know who work in retail, it’s got worse, a lot worse. (Not specifically at Whitcoulls but in general). Another shop (in a smaller chain) reduced my shift to a few hours on a Sunday, when it would take me an hour each way to get there
I was doing an ok job, but one of the full time workers had a daughter who wanted my hours so that was that. At another place they fired the store manager so the owner’s daughter could run it (v v badly) then gave us no notice they were closing down. I’d been burnt by that...
... before, when the KFC rip off I was working at closed down with promises of reopening so I didn’t quit and never got my holiday pay. I negotiated that they keep the store open for our notice period, then immediately quit myself to make sure I got my holiday pay...
Even then I had to badger the owner to pay me and eventually actually go around to his fancy house to pick up the cheque (rather than accept BS it’s in the mail) then rushed to a bank to cash it immediately. I’m still owed the $121.20 from the chicken place.
I tried to pursue the (v wealthy) owner of the chicken place, through the Dept of Labour which was my only option. He kept selling them bs about needing to sell some pizza ovens to find the money. He could have paid me anytime he wanted. I have joined a union ever since.
Across my retail experiences (old now) I had some good times, don’t get me wrong. I particularly enjoyed working for Whitcoulls and helping people to find a good book or ideal gift. The staff discount was decent and just as well because that’s where I spent almost all of my $.
But the power imbalance was always there, between the workers on the shop floor and the owners or HQ. Ours was not to reason why, even when they asked for feedback (which was usually Stop Sending Us So Many Flyers It’s A Huge Waste) change didn’t come.
I see Greg Foran doing the tea and coffee runs on AirNZ flights and part of me thinks “finally, someone from ELT doing some of the front of house work to see what it’s like” but I fear it’s just a performance. Will he learn from doing it?
Will he work with baggage handlers too, and mechanics, and check in staff, and cleaners, and will he do it while getting paid their wages? Will he do it in a way that reinforces his power or in a humble way that empowers those he’s working with (is that even possible)?
Ive long advocated, since my Whitcoulls days, that ELT should have to spend a solid fortnight every year doing one of the front line jobs in their organisation. It would just be a cameo but it might help build empathy and understanding. Especially in retail...
... and hospo where so often the distance between HQ and shop floor is vast - pay, conditions, skill sets, hours, type of work, and more. Maybe then the FAQ head office comes up with for counter staff would include how to deal with a customer who is always right...
... and also racist eg one who complained to me Aotearoa was written across the top of a stamp in bigger letters than New Zealand, proceeded to tell me some anti-Semitic bs & then wrote to the paper complaining about stamp kerning. I wasn’t paid enough to deal with that shit.
A lot of this is on the edge of jolly japes because I was a white middle class girl on the North Shore, with parents who had the resources to support me to push back, and I didn’t really need the money. Change any parts of that equation, change many, and surely...
... Anyone can see the exploitation and risk inherent in the way this stuff works. And it is more precarious now than when I was in it. Even before the pandemic and the astronomical housing costs of today. The only thing I’ve ever seen that helps to rebalance things is a...
... unionised workforce. Thank you for reading my meandering thread! /fin
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