Public backlash at supermarket manager asking staff to work for pizza

A supermarket asking for a slice of free labour in exchange for pizza has come under public attack.

A letter was posted in a Western Australian Coles store asking staff to volunteer to four hours free labour on Sunday night to clear an ‘enormous amount of stock out the back in the stockroom’ went viral on social media over the weekend.

The letter said pizza would be plentiful at 9.30pm, after the 4 hour shift.

After the notice was posted, several staff members contacted the WA branch of the Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers Association (SDA), the union for workers in retail, fast food and warehousing to complain.

The public followed suit with a large backlash on social media against the supermarket chain, some calling it disgusting, others saying to boycott the store.

It also prompted a lot of funny requests from people asking if they could now pay for their groceries in pizza.

Coles responded on their Facebook page to the many comments about the notice advising it was posted by a trainee manager and was quickly removed.

They also advised is was out of step with Coles’ way of working and that anyone who worked at the stated time will be paid as normal.

Read the note in full:

Dear team, I’ve got a personal request for you all. As you can see we have an enormous amount of stock out the back in the stockroom. I am asking team members to give me four hrs free labour. Yes, it is a big ask and I would not be requesting this unless it was absolutely necessary.

On Sunday the 19th I plan to work through 6x pallets of stock as well as 78x cages of stock out the back. I plan to kick off the evening at 5:30pm and work through to 9:30pm. Pizza will be plentiful at 9:30pm.

We have 65 team members. It would be wonderful if everyone could be involved as this would make the job so much easier and may even allow us to leave earlier, which would be fantastic.

The excess stock does affect everyone in the store and none more so than [name blanked out] who has to do the gap scan everyday under these really difficult conditions. Therefore I hope that you can give of your time to help the store get on top of this once and for all.

I would really appreciate you coming to help.

What do you think of the letter?