Lost In The Supermarket

Just as had been the case back on February 15th, 2017, when we met up with embattled and embittered local Tesco workers down at The Beach House this week, nobody wanted to be identified.

Jump back 31 months, and these long-time Tesco employees were getting ready to join the national strike over attempts by the supermarket giant to flush out any employees with pre-1996 contracts.

Because they’re the kinds of contracts that come with pensions, and sick leave, and all those other luxuries that our parents, and their parents, took as standard with any job that you spent the bulk of your working life doing. 

That was before the big corporations realised that such workplace dignity and pride came at a price, whereas short-term and zero hour contracts were only worth the wage slip they were written on. 

It’s been a tough 31 months for those long-term Tesco employees who have refused to sign on the dotted line for a bigger, brighter, better future. For Tesco. Their refusal has meant disciplinary action against against certain strikers, along with no 2% annual pay increase. High fives and air kisses in those Greystones aisles are, we reckon, pretty darn rare.

Of the 1,200 long-term Tesco employees still standing back in February 2017, only 300 are left today. And now, with talks between the company and its employees having broken down at the Workplace Relations Commission on Tuesday, the Mandate trade union – whose representatives aren’t allowed on Tesco floors – are contemplating national action.

In the meantime, at the request of the Greystones employees that we met up with this week, the following Mandate statement, outlining the current state of play, has been sent to the Guide…

Since 2017, Tesco has continued their refusal to engage with Mandate Trade Union. Following the strikes that took place in February that year, despite agreeing to a no retribution or victimisation clause as part of the end of the strike, the company took disciplinary action against 80 workers for engaging in their right to strike. Mandate won all of the cases in the WRC and Labour Court.

The original dispute centred around the company attempting to unilaterally impose changes to contracts of employment to workers employed before 1996. Since then, the company has refused to pay those 180 workers a 2% pay increase every year since, equating to 8% now.

Many of the longest serving workers in Tesco are owed more than €6,500, and the Labour Court has issued a recommendation telling the company to pay the workers the money they are owed. The company has so far refused. The workers impacted by Tesco’s actions are now owed more than €1 million collectively.

Tesco continues to prevent Mandate officials from visiting stores to talk to their members. They have refused to engage on both local and national issues, leading to a number of strikes in Sligo and Carrick-on-Shannon last December.

Mandate has now lodged a claim for improved pay and conditions of employment with the company seeking:

1) PAY: Create one equal pay scale for store based staff starting at the living wage.
2) SCHEDULING: Fairer scheduling for a better work/life balance including greater certainty over working patterns, 4-week advance notice of rosters.
3) FULL TIME JOBS: More security of weekly working hours with the creation of at least 1,000 full-time contracts.
4) A VOICE AT WORK: That Tesco Ireland fully respect and comply with all existing collective agreements and engages on both individual and collective issues with your Union.

More than 6,000 Tesco Workers have now endorsed the claim yet the company, again, has failed to respond.

Mandate intends to hold a national protest over the coming months if Tesco management continue to refuse their workers the right to representation.

You can follow the February 2017 strike step-by-step here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. By the time we ran an April 1st that year on Tesco closing, many in the town were ready to believe it.