Supermarket staff face grim future

Jun 10 2011 by Denis Brown, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

STAFF at Crieff’s Haldanes supermarket fear they are about to lose their jobs if the supermarket closes next Tuesday.

Online forums have been buzzing this week with reports of empty shelves at other Haldanes stores, including Kelso and Wick, while recent media coverage has painted a grim picture about the chain.

Yesterday afternoon, Haldanes chief executive, Arthur Harris, announced the chain was closing most of its stores with the loss of hundreds of jobs.

The group has 13 stores in Scotland, and a total of 26 across the UK, employing 600 staff.

At the Crieff store deliveries are understood to have ceased completely, with much remaining stock being sold at discount prices.

Yesterday a regular shopper told the PA that staff – some who were among the 22 former Co-op employees Haldanes adopted when taking over the store in December 2009 – were worried about their future.

“One women who’s worked there for years says staff have been kept in the dark for weeks,” she said.

“The reason I asked was they were running low on everything – it was getting ridiculous.

“But she told me today that staff have now been told that next Tuesday is D-Day and they might just get paid for a week, not the whole month.”

Efforts to extract comment from Haldanes HQ yesterday proved fruitless, with the company’s website also down.

An employee said she did not know where Mr Harris was, another director was on holiday and the company’s media contact was unreachable.

“It’s all very difficult, none of us know what’s happening,” she said.

In late 2009, Haldanes purchased 26 former Somerfield stores from the Co-op, which is understood to have had a negative impact on the group, with Haldanes and the Co-op now reportedly embroiled in a legal stramash.

Colin McLean, owner of the Blue Sky Cafe in the Penny Lane Shopping Centre – part of the Haldanes building – told the PA his understanding was that Haldanes actually owned, not leased, the whole building.

“There’s lots of rumour and speculation but we’ve heard that the receivers are coming in to manage the Haldanes supermarket next Tuesday,” he said.

“But what that means for Haldanes staff and my business and others in the arcade, who knows.”