Latest / Best of Business / Rudd Hughes: Workers First deputy secretary on Woolworths moving 130 jobs to Australia

Transcript

Rudd Hughes: Workers First deputy secretary on Woolworths moving 130 jobs to Australia · Best of Business

• 0:09
  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from Newstalk ZB. Follow this
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: and our wide range of podcasts now on iHeartRadio.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Right now, let's talk about Woolworths. Now, Woolworths has confirmed
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: it plans to shut down its New Zealand customer care centre.
• 0:22
  Speaker 2: It means about 130 jobs could go to Australia. Workers
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: First Union Deputy Secretary Rudd Hughes is with us now.
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: Hi, Rudd.
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: Hi. You just found out this afternoon, did you?
• 0:33
  Speaker 3: It was announced this afternoon at one o'clock at a
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: town hall meeting, which I spent 20 minutes on and
• 0:40
  Speaker 3: then refused to answer questions to the people who were
• 0:42
  Speaker 3: being basically made redundant.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Is 130 workers basically all the workers who work in
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: the customer care?
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Absolutely. That's the lot. Okay.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: And what's the attraction with Australia? Because I would have
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: thought Australia would cost more. It has higher wages.
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: Well, they're saying it's a double cost. So they're paying
• 1:00
  Speaker 3: for it here, and they could just pay for it
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: over there. And they just want to cut the costs, basically.
• 1:06
  Speaker 3: They've told us that it's going to be a saving
• 1:08
  Speaker 3: of $ 4. 1 million. over the next couple of years. Um, and, um,
• 1:12
  Speaker 3: and that's really been the rationale for it.
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: It makes sense, doesn't it? I mean, that's fair enough,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: isn't it?
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: Well, yes and no. I mean, the problem, the problem is,
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: is that, um, is that, you know, we've constantly talked
• 1:25
  Speaker 3: to the company about customer service. We've constantly talked to
• 1:28
  Speaker 3: them about the fact that this austerity stuff is false economy.
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: What you're going to get is you're going to lose
• 1:33
  Speaker 3: a whole lot of really experienced workers who are, you know,
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: who basically, um, You know, they've got local experience, they've
• 1:40
  Speaker 3: got strong local connections, they've got local knowledge, and you
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: can't replace that with offshore training with Australian workers. You know,
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: the company talks constantly about customer service, but this is
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: not going to help their customer service.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: So what do these people do? What is the customer
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: care that they provide? Give me an example.
• 1:58
  Speaker 3: So if you've got an issue with, you know, something
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: that's been delivered to you wrongly or if they, you know,
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: or just answering general questions, So they're basically the front
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: face of the company to the public.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: Like you have to phone them up?
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Does anybody still do that, Rudd? Because I just do
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: it through all of the AI.
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely. These people are well employed. They work quite
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: long hours and they're highly necessary. And people like, I mean,
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: some people are perfectly okay with going onto the internet
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: and using the AI, but a lot of people like
• 2:37
  Speaker 3: to hear a voice and they like to hear a
• 2:39
  Speaker 3: voice that's a New Zealand voice on the other end
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: of the phone when they're dealing with a company that
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: works in New Zealand.
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: Hey, I thought it was really interesting, the strategy that
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: you guys have used, which is that in your press release,
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: you've published one of the company's email addresses and encouraged
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: the public to hit them up on the email address.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: And so obviously you're not the first to do that.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: It's been done before. Does it actually work?
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: It certainly focuses the company's attention. You've got to remember,
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: this is a proposal that what the members and the
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: workers who went to that meeting felt was that it's
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: a done deal. This is going to happen. But I
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: think the company need to hear from the public around
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: exactly what people feel about losing these kinds of jobs.
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: One of the things about this is that we have
• 3:22
  Speaker 3: a lot of people who work in this area who
• 3:24
  Speaker 3: are single parents. They rely on this money really heavily.
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: these people are going to be laid off basically around
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: Christmas time, which is going to make for a pretty
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: grim Christmas for them on a job market that's already
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: got 5.6% unemployed. I mean, it must be quite frightening
• 3:46
  Speaker 3: for these workers.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't imagine it's going to be much fun. Hey, Rudd,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: thanks very much. I really appreciate your time. Rudd Hughes,
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: Workers First Union Deputy Secretary.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: For more from Newstalk ZB, listen live, on air, or online.
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: And keep our shows with you wherever you go with
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: our podcasts on iHeart Radio.