Latest / Best of Business / Rudd Hughes: Workers First Union spokesperson addresses claims New World workers banned from water at checkouts

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Rudd Hughes: Workers First Union spokesperson addresses claims New World workers banned from water at checkouts · Best of Business

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  Speaker 2: Now.
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  Speaker 3: We've got a bit of controversy over water at work.
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  Speaker 3: So what's happened as a New World worker has gone
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  Speaker 3: on to Reddit to complain that their store is going
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  Speaker 3: to band employees from having water bottles on the shop floor.
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  Speaker 3: This means, of course, they can only drink water on
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  Speaker 3: their breaks. Rud Hues is with the Workers' First union
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  Speaker 3: high Rod. Is this really happening?
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  Speaker 2: What apparently it is? And it's not the first time
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  Speaker 2: we've kind of come across this sort of thing. We
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  Speaker 2: have had issues and other stores and other retail stores,
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  Speaker 2: and where we've had those issues, we've managed to sit
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  Speaker 2: down with the company and talk about access to water
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  Speaker 2: and where they have access to water, you know, they
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  Speaker 2: don't need the water bottles, but where they haven't got
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  Speaker 2: access to water, and where they can put them out
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  Speaker 2: of site under counters. The companies have come back and said, okay,
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  Speaker 2: well those people can have water bottles. It seems to
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  Speaker 2: me a kind of a basic human righteople should be
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  Speaker 2: able to have access to water.
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  Speaker 3: What's the problem? Is it just the site of the bottle.
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  Speaker 2: It seems to be that that is that is that
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  Speaker 2: is the problem, and it may be that they think
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  Speaker 2: that it's getting in the way of customer service. I
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  Speaker 2: think that actually, if you've got hydrated people who are
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  Speaker 2: comfortable and happy, they're going to give much better customer
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  Speaker 2: service than people who are dying for a drink.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, how long can these these workers go without a break,
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  Speaker 3: you know, between being able to get to their drink bottles.
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  Speaker 2: Well, there's requirements under the law for people to be
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  Speaker 2: able to have a break every two hours or two
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  Speaker 2: and a half hours, but there might be other reasons
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  Speaker 2: that people need water bottles. It may be and I
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  Speaker 2: think that also one of the things that medical professions
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  Speaker 2: is is that we need to hydrate more than we
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  Speaker 2: actually do. And it's really basically it's a health and
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  Speaker 2: safety issue as far as I concerned.
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  Speaker 3: Now New Water's franchises, Isn't it so this would vary
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  Speaker 3: store to store, wouldn't it?
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  Speaker 2: It does? It does, and some you know, and some
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  Speaker 2: employees are much better than others in terms of of
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  Speaker 2: making sure that their employees are comfortable and hydrated, whereas
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  Speaker 2: you know, some are much more dictatorial and not willing
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  Speaker 2: to kind of provide that for workers.
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  Speaker 3: I find this really odd, Rud, because I would have
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  Speaker 3: thought that if you're standing at a checkout, you've got
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  Speaker 3: a whole bunch of places you can hide your bottle
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  Speaker 3: underneath the counter, can't you badly?
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  Speaker 2: I couldn't agree more, and that is the argument we've
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  Speaker 2: made when when we've talked to other companies.
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  Speaker 3: Right, thanks very much, appreciate it, Rud Hugh's Deputy Secretary
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  Speaker 3: of Retail at the Workers First Union. You've got a
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  Speaker 3: statement from food Stuff so they say there's no National
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  Speaker 3: food Stuff's policy on this, but we expect our store
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  Speaker 3: teams to be fair and reasonable to look after their teams.
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