After just one week of recruiting at The Warehouse Distribution Centre in Auckland, 130 employees joined the NDU, including workers from the company’s Christchurch site.

Growth Unit organiser Jim Meyer says he was blown away by staff members response to the union.

“When we signed up 52 workers in the first two hours recruitment it quickly became clear that workers weren’t happy with the company, the WPU or their new collective agreement. Workers were gutted when we showed them standard NDU industry wages for distribution workers.”

The Warehouse has announced annual net profit after tax of $115.5 million compared to $29.3 million last year. Sales from continuing operations for the year ended July 29 were up 2.4 per cent to $1.76 billion, The Warehouse said today.

Net profit after tax, excluding the sale of The Base development in the latest year and the divestment of the Australian business the year earlier, was up from $96.2 million the previous year to $97.9 million in the latest year. Total operating revenue for the year was down 5.3 per cent to $1.8 billion from $1.9 billion.