Workers at Country Road's warehouse (CRG Logistics) have taken their grievances with their employer to the streets, striking outside of their workplace and in front of Country Road’s flagship store in South Yarra.
The campaign claims that the largely female workforce at CRG Logistics are being paid as much as $10 less per hour than their male counterparts who do the same work, in the same suburb.
The Union is advocating for a $1 per hour pay rise for the CRG Logistics staff, which it says is being refused by Country Road.
"Country Road claims this bargaining process has been fair, but have made every attempt to silence the voices of workers who only want a living wage," UWU logistics coordinator Mick Power said.
"The reality for workers at Country Road, beyond the glossy magazines, celebrity-stacked fashion shows and beautifully curated boutiques is a hostile workplace coupled with poverty wages and mostly male management who don’t want to listen to their mostly women workers.
"In April, 82% of workers voted to reject the insulting offer from Country Road.
"Since then, the company has refused to compromise or even talk about a fair deal, despite workers and their union moving on many of their claims," he said.
However, a Country Road Group spokesperson said the business is working to come to a fair agreement with its workforce.
"Country Road Group is working to deliver fair and sustainable wage growth to our distribution team and has always paid wages above the industry award rate set by the Fair Work Commission.
"We are deeply aware that our team like many in the community have been going through a challenging and difficult time and we are committed to supporting them with sustainable wage increases and a strong value proposition across every aspect of their work life.
"Over the past 12 months we have been in negotiation with our team’s representatives to agree on wage increases every year for the next three years through the EBA process.
"Our offer is 11% higher than the award rate set by the Fair Work Commission and provides a 2.7% annual pay increase for the next three years.
"This process reflects our principles of fairness, flexibility and sustainability and follows open and transparent consultation with our team.
"We are proud of our workplace culture and are deeply committed to treating all our team members with fairness, dignity and respect," the spokesperson said.
In addition to the rally outside the South Yarra store, the action was made more visible online, during the Melbourne Fashion Week talk 'Beyond Greenwashing' which featured Country Road's head of sustainability Eloise Bishop.
The UWU encouraged Facebook users to watch the livestream and comment asking questions of Bishop such as:
- "How can you justify Country Road’s treatment of their female warehouse workers?"
- "What is ethical about having Country Road’s male managers intimidate female workers who are only fighting for a modest $1 an hour wage increase?"
- "Country Road has given workers no new offer since April. Yet you claim publicly that your bargaining with their supply chain workers in Melbourne has been fair and reasonable. How can you call that ethical?"
In the Beyond Greenwashing talk, Bishop addressed the ongoing negotiations going on between the business and the Union.
"Being transparent is something that is fundamental to our business.
"So being able to share with our stakeholders the work that we're doing and the progress that we're making on a whole range of issues.
"And one of those issues that we're dealing with at the moment - just to be really upfront - is that our business has been involved in some ongoing industrial action with workers at our distribution centre in Truganina, and there has been a little bit of noise leading up to this talk.
"We've been involved in negotiations for about 10 months and the work that we're doing relates to workers in our distribution centre where we're dealing with bargaining representatives.
"We've offered a pay increase of 11% above the award, and those negotiations are still ongoing, but we are very committed to being upfront and open about the process that we're going through and treating everybody respectfully and fairly because that is very much a part of our business and the workplace culture that we have.
"I just wanted to be upfront about that situation as well, because it's something that we're quite committed to doing and we hope to resolve that situation in a very fair and respectful way," she said.
However, UWU national secretary Tim Kennedy alleged that those taking action have been intimidated by their managers.
"Country Road warehouse workers, which are taking legally protected action in pursuit of a better agreement, have been threatened and stood over by managers on site.
"That kind of behaviour doesn’t really gel with the company’s claims that it is committed to ‘high social, ethical, and environmental standards in the supply chain’ and organisers need to recognise that Country Road’s practices are neither ethical nor sustainable," he said.
The Country Road Group spokesperson said that while the business is working to come to an agreement, it feels that the UWU is trying to publicly discredit its brands.
"Country Road Group has strong female representation at every level of our business, including throughout our leadership and management teams.
"We are an equal opportunity employer, pay our team fairly and do not condone any type of discrimination based on gender or otherwise.
"Regrettably, the UWU has responded to a fair and reasonable process by attempting to publicly discredit our brands and team members with false and baseless allegations.
"The UWU has also engaged in activity designed to bully and intimidate team members who want to attend work.
"We support the right of our distribution centre team members to take industrial action but cannot condone these activities and are clear on our responsibilities.
"We believe that fairness and sustainability in delivering wage growth will in turn support welfare and future opportunities for our entire team.
"Illegal picket lines have prevented our people from working and impacted the rights of our team.
"These actions are manifestly unfair to our team and we call on the UWU to respect the bargaining process," the spokesperson said.
Country Road Group comprises the brands Country Road, Witchery, Trenery, Mimco and Politix.