A strike has broken out at the branches of the Makro department store chain in Machelen and Deurne. The staff is opposed to the termination of the temporary contracts, whereby 100 to 200 employees have to be made redundant.
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Makro’s management announced this morning at a meeting of the works councils of the six branches that a new round of savings will be made. The chain will phase out the temporary contracts in the coming twelve months, it was said. According to CEO Vincent Nolf, this concerns 100 to 200 employees. Open-ended contracts are not affected. The internal organization will be reviewed, so that some will be given a different function.
The company mentions “initiatives to address the structural costs that hinder Makro’s economic development.” In its own words, the management wants to make the branches more competitive, with ‘maximum retention of employment, more specifically of employees with a contract of indefinite duration’. “Temporary contracts, on the contrary, will be phased out step by step in 12 months.”
“It concerns different numbers per store, for all stores together 100 to 200 temporary jobs,” explains CEO Vincent Nolf. “This is a way of protecting indefinite contracts.” These temporary contracts are not immediately terminated, they are not renewed. “There are no closures or collective redundancies.”
Bake-off bread and self-scanning
Makro also announces several other changes that should also reduce costs. For example, the range of books and magazines is being phased out, while there is now a wide range. Smoking products will no longer be offered from 2021. The bakery is switching to baked products instead of a traditional bakery.
There will also be self-scan checkouts for customers who want this. Here Makro is behind other players, it sounds. The availability of the cash registers will be increased through self-scan registers. More than 45 percent of customers have fewer than five items, according to Nolf. There has also been a simplification of the internal organizational structure.
Staking
In the afternoon, the union front of BBTK, ACV Puls, CNE and ACLVB reported that ‘from now on’ personnel actions are not excluded in the six stores in Machelen, Deurne, Eke, Sint-Pieters-Leeuw, Alleur and Lodelinsart. After the information sessions of the management, the staff in Deurne and Machelen decided to close the shop doors, says Stijn Vandercruysse of the liberal trade union ACLVB. Everyone is aware of Makro’s financial situation, he says, but ‘we do not understand that no dialogue is possible or counter-proposals can be made’.
According to the unions, the staff will pay the bill. “This saving will be entirely on the back of the workforce with a change in the terms of employment, change of schedules and functions without any social consultation,” denounced the Christian, socialist and liberal unions. According to them, there is a ‘cancellation of an unprecedented number of employees’ and there will be ‘unbridled flexibility and automation’. The staff are the victims of the plan.
Higher turnover due to corona
In 2018, the chain implemented a commercial overhaul to attract more customers. The fall in annual turnover was thus reduced from more than 10 percent to 1.5 percent. That figure improved to just above zero, and then came the corona crisis, with sales up 20 to 40 percent in the months, April, May and June, thanks to hoarding behavior. However, according to Nolf, this sharp increase in turnover was also not enough to turn the loss into profit.
The chain has been struggling with problems in our country for some time now. In July, for example, there was a strike in Machelen due to job losses. A month earlier there was a strike in Lodelinsart, partly against the workload. And in 2016 there was another restructuring at the chain. A year later the electronics division was transferred to Media market.
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