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Wesfarmers ‘Coles Supermarket Integrity Watch’
by shopper Tuesday, Jun 4 2013, 8:50am
international / prose / post

Coles supermarket chain, now owned by Wesfarmers, has modelled itself after US mega-retailer, Walmart, especially its policy of employing servile ethnic floor staff that are woefully unaware of workers rights in Australia and that Australia has a rich history of Unionism in establishing the benefits that workers enjoy today.

Without strong local Unions Oz would probably be in a similar (exploitative) situation to America where $5/hour remains the standard legal minimum rate; workers are expected to solicit tips to make a basic subsistence wage. However, even though local Unions have been under siege in Oz for decades, minimum pay rates are considerably more than their American and Western European counterparts.

It is known that Walmart turns a blind eye to suspect ‘illegals’ and employs large numbers of compliant Mexican workers (that share green cards among themselves). Compliant illegals and desperate legals are preferable to locals that are acutely aware of workers rights and labour laws, especially the exploitation and standover tricks of management.

But that is not the main issue with Coles Australia, the principal issue is, INTEGRITY and Coles’ REAL attitude to customer relations, workers and suppliers. The reality is completely opposite to the media image Coles likes to project to an unwary public.

We are aware that Coles customer complaints are characterised by a failure to adequately address, pursue and resolve complaints; the Coles method is to assure customers how important their issue is and that their complaint is under investigation -- after months of repeating this formula Coles then ignores all further inquiries regarding resolving legitimate complaints. The reality is that customers and staff are treated like shit by Coles management!

In view of the above reality and the innumerable IGNORED customer and staff complaints, a website will be created so that staff, customers and suppliers are able to air their complaints publicly and expose this sordid American inspired, exploitative and profoundly dishonest Company.

The precedent was set some time ago with telco Vodafone, which was devastated by a complaints and exposure website!

Customers, staff and suppliers will no doubt recognise the many grievances/complaints and the tactics Coles employs to exploit staff and disregard VALID customer and supplier complaints.