Tesco Ireland has called on trade union Mandate to call off one-day strikes in the towns of Sligo and Carrick-on-Shannon, saying that the planned actions breach the company and union’s agreed procedures for settling disputes, which are to refer disputes to the Workplace Relations Commission.
At the weekend, Mandate said that workers in the two stores ‘voted overwhelmingly’ in favour of industrial action, saying that the retailer ‘continues to breach agreements and deny workers their right to collective representation’.
Workers in the Sligo store are scheduled to strike on Thursday 6 December and Friday 14 December, while Carrick-on-Shannon workers are due to strike on 22 December.
“It’s extremely disappointing it has come to this. Our members do not want to be on strike, particularly in the run up to Christmas, but unfortunately Tesco management have left them with no alternative,” commented Mandate Trade Union General Secretary John Douglas.
'Remaining Open'
In response, Tesco Ireland said that if Mandate ‘proceeds with the proposed unwarranted one-day strike actions for the two stores, both will continue to remain open to serve customers.
'We regret that Mandate is inflicting this inconvenience on our customers in December when our stores are at their busiest and particularly given these stores are close to the Border.
‘We call on Mandate to abide by procedures and to immediately withdraw its strike notices for Sligo and Carrick-on-Shannon.'
Tesco also said that it believes its ‘overall terms of employment still remain better in many respects to those of our competitors in the market and in a difficult competitive environment’, with the retailer having delivered a combined 8% pay increase since 2015.
Tesco had scheduled a conciliation conference to address the two issues in Sligo at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) on 24 October, but it was rejected by Mandate, Tesco noted.
© 2018 European Supermarket Magazine – your source for the latest retail news. Article by Dayeeta Das. Click subscribe to sign up to ESM: European Supermarket Magazine.
