More than 20 managers across Border and North East Woolworths stores could lose their jobs in a "restructure" by the supermarket giant.
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The union representing staff will take the matter to the Fair Work Commission.
Employees at stores including Albury, Thurgoona, Wodonga, White Box Rise and Lavington have been notified of the changes which will force long-term employees to reapply for their jobs or take other, lower-paid positions.
The SDA, the union for workers in retail, fast food and warehousing, lodged a dispute on Tuesday with the Fair Work Commission against the supermarket's plans to restructure its store management.
But Woolworths claims the changes "will not lead to a net reduction in the overall number of team members" employed.
A long-term Woolworths employee on the Border, who didn't want to be named out of concern for their job, told The Border Mail "a lot of the older employees are really worried".
"Woolworths has a lot of long-term employees who have been with the company for 10, 20 and even 30 years ... so those people are concerned they will lose their jobs," the worker said.
"In a store where there are probably 10 people who will be affected, they have been told that there are only seven managers jobs that will be available.
"We just reapply and have to wait to see what happens."
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The restructuring will see many of the managerial jobs disappear with new titles coming into effect in September.
SDA national secretary Gerard Dwyer said the union has lodged a dispute on "several issues important to Woolworths workers".
"We're extremely disappointed Woolworths has undertaken a restructure of this magnitude and in such a time frame," he said.
Mr Dwyer said the union is challenging whether the company is "undertaking genuine redundancies and whether the time frame provided to staff is reasonable.''
A Woolworths spoksman said their "immediate focus is identifying as many redeployment opportunities as possible for impacted team members".
"Under the new model, we're creating more customer facing leadership roles to help deliver better service to our customers and to meet their changing shopping needs."
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