The future of about 100 staff at Masters Home Improvement Wendouree hangs in the balance as Woolworths decides individual closing dates within its failed hardware chain.
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Stores across the country will close by December 11, dependent on how quickly they clear their stock, a Woolworths spokesperson said.
The Shop Distributive and Allied Employees’ Association (SDA) emerged from talks with Woolworths on Friday.
Staff will be given the option upfront to be redeployed or receive a full redundancy, and a support person will be deployed to each store next week, SDA national secretary Gerard Dwyer said.
Mr Dwyer said there would be some lead up time before individual store closures, which as yet are unknown.
“Each week that goes past there will be trends that emerge in regards to stock clearance,” Mr Dwyer said.
“These things are being put in place now and those conversations start next week, the ones that have taken place in the last 48 have been support conversations but the real conversations about your choices going forward starts next week.”
SDA has already begun conversation with Bunnings, which acquired 15 sites from Masters, about taking on employees who wish to remain in the hardware sector.
Staff were told Woolworths would be closing its 63 Masters stores at the same time the company notified the market on Wednesday.
Some Wendouree staff took to The Courier Facebook page to say they first heard the news via the media, and had been hopeful until then of a take-over.
Woolworths has reiterated its commitment to staff, saying it is the company’s top priority.
The Masters lease at Eureka Homemaker Centre Wendouree will be taken over by Home Consortium to be run as a large format retail centre.
The repurposed sites are expected to create 8000 jobs across Australia when they re-open in the second quarter of 2017, dependent on the operations of its tenants.