More than 150 Woolworths warehouse employees have met at Broadmeadows to devise a plan to save jobs and convince the supermarket chain not to abandon the suburb.
The National Union of Workers (NUW) meeting was held at Broadmeadows town hall earlier this month to discuss whether distribution centre staff want to actively pressure Woolworths to keep its Northcorp Boulevard site operational.
The company announced in June it would close the centre by 2018, replacing it with a “state-of-the-art” centre in Melbourne’s south-east. The exact location of the new centre has not been disclosed.
NUW Victorian branch secretary Gary Maas said the August 5 meeting discussed how Woolworths could be held to account.
“It was the first meeting to say “do you want to have a campaign”, and people were very responsive to that,” he said.
One measure raised was a boycott of Woolworths-owned stores, which also includes Dan Murphy’s, Big W and Masters.
Mr Maas did, however, rule out following the lead of 200 Woolworths’ Laverton distribution centre employees who formed a picket line prohibiting trucks from leaving or entering the centre last Monday. He said Broadmeadows employees wanted secure employment.
Local MPs, including Calwell MP Maria Vamvakinou and Broadmeadows MP Frank McGuire, will be asked to look into incentives to woo Woolworths back to the north.
Melanie Raymond, who chairs welfare agency Youth Projects, also spoke at the meeting.
She urged help for employees already mentally or emotionally struggling with the potential ramifications of the site’s closure.
“They have taken 680 jobs from an area of the highest unemployment for reasons no one can understand,” she said.
“This will impact on thousands of people, their families, local shops.”
She said there was a very strong view expressed at the meeting that Woolworths had not provided a proper explanation for the site’s closure.
“They [employees] want the decision reconsidered.”
A second meeting will be held soon.
