The lease for a Warehouse Group store in Auckland has been on the market since last year, despite consultation about job losses at the store only beginning last week.
The revelation comes after the company's chief executive claimed it would not give notice on ending tenancies before consulting with 1000 affected staff across the country.
The Noel Leeming clearance centre store in Henderson. Photo: RNZ / Nick Monro
Union representatives say that makes a mockery of the redundancy process and are demanding answers.
Last week Warehouse Group chief executive Nick Grayston told Checkpoint the company was about to start consultation with staff set to be impacted by the proposed closure of six stores.
Those stores are Noel Leeming Henderson Clearance Centre as well as a Tokoroa store, The Warehouse Whangaparaoa, Johnsonville and Dunedin Central stores, and Warehouse Stationery in Te Awamutu.
Grayston was then asked whether The Warehouse Group had already given notice to vacate its tenancy at any of those stores before consulting about the closures with staff.
"Not yet," was his answer.
But Checkpoint can reveal the retail space currently occupied by the Noel Leeming Henderson Clearance Centre has in fact been on the market to lease since last year.
A Colliers Real Estate Agent confirmed on Wednesday it was listed in September, 2019.
The Warehouse maintains it has not given notice to its Henderson landlord - and is instead looking for interest in the lease, with physical signs in place since last year.
But Tali Williams, First Union's secretary for the Retail, Finance and Commerce Division, is not buying it.
"It's incredibly disappointing and quite shocking, it looks like they've already decided to give up that lease to that store they've told us and their own workers that they're consulting on the future of.
"That contradicts quite clearly what Nick Grayston said last week to us and the public, that A: there was genuine consultation in the pipelines, and B: that no lease was up, or that there was no predetermination in regard to any of the properties.
"In fact tomorrow we were due to meet alongside a group of workers and the company to discuss, so the company could hear the workers' voice before decisions were made.
"I feel this revelation makes a mockery of that process."
Williams says the union wants to see workers have a genuine say on their futures.
Grayston declined to be interviewed on Wednesday.
Williams said she wants to ask him why he "did not come forward with the truth when he was directly asked regarding leases coming up in any of those properties.
"And why he spoke about genuine consultation when he knew that was not the case. Particularly in the situation of Noel Leeming in Henderson.
"For those workers in Noel Leeming in Henderson, if they are made redundant as a result of this process, it really raises a question about unfair dismissal, given what we know is not a genuine consultation process."
Employment lawyer Hazel Armstrong told Checkpoint companies cannot have a pre-determined outcome in mind when entering consultation.
"You go into consultation to genuinely hear what the workers have to say.
"It's doubly important if people's jobs are at stake. So the obligations in terms of redundancy or redeployment or an intention to dismiss elevates the amount of information a worker needs to get, and the good faith obligations are triggered because there is a job at stake," Armstrong said.
The Warehouse Group declined to be interviewed but in a statement the company said it is working to redeploy 19 members in the Henderson store. First Union disputes the number of workers at the store, saying it's more like 15
