Thewarehouse staff called to meetings

Staff at Thewarehouse have been called to meetings next week amid rumours of further redundancies at the retail giant. Stuff understands the company will present a proposal to close jewellery counters at its stores. Yesterday, a spokeswoman for Thewarehouse said meetings would be held on Tuesday and staff had not yet received any proposal. First Union retail organiser Ben Peterson said the union heard from The Warehouse about a proposal yesterday afternoon. While details were still unclear, the union would represent all affected staff, he said. ‘‘It is a very profitable company, so we can’t see any reason for redundancies.’’ Lastmonth, Thewarehouse Group, which includes Thewarehouse, Noel Leeming, Warehouse Stationery and Torpedo7, reported a record first-half profit of $55 million, up from $29.2m on the year before.