TWO local bottle shop employees have stormed out in protest after the store's area manager demanded one of them put the job before her own family.
Nicola Gordon, who had worked at Liquorland Coles for nearly four years, was handed the ultimatum after she refused to bring her 13-year-old daughter to the store so it could remain open when another employee called in sick.
"I was so angry when he (the manager) asked me to do that at the end of the day it's just a bottle shop," she said.
"It's wrong they expected me to do that I've got a family and shouldn't have to put the shop first.
"Apart from considering it to be inappropriate to bring my daughter into work, my thoughts were also that she would be unsupervised for the majority of the time as I would be busy serving customers and this would not be an acceptable thing to do."
But when Mrs Gordon tried to tell the area manager how she felt when he visited the store three days later, he told her she had to make a choice between the store and her family.
"He said 'it's a no-no to close the shop, the doors are to stay open no matter what' I told him 'I'm sorry, but my family comes before Liquorland' and he said 'Liquorland is important and that's a choice you have to make'," she said.
"I felt that I was being given an ultimatum to choose between Liquorland and my family."
Mrs Gordon quit on the spot and she was followed by a second long-time employee, who resigned in support of her.
Both employees said local customers needed to realise how the supermarket chain treated their staff.
A spokesperson for Coles apologised to Mrs Gordon and admitted the treatment she received was "not appropriate".
"Coles was disappointed to learn of last week's incident with a team member at our Liquorland store in Griffith," the spokesperson said.
"We do not believe the team member has been treated appropriately in this instance. Our senior Liquorland management are trying to contact the team member in question to offer an apology and to discuss her options to come back to work at Liquorland in Griffith or an alternative location if she'd prefer."