Tesco workers began a series of protests on Thursday over what the Mandate trade union has described as the British supermarket chain’s “refusal” to collectively bargain with employees in the Republic.
The protests, which began at Tesco Ardkeen in Waterford on Thursday morning, are related to the retailer’s recent decision to increase pay for all its Irish workers by 3 per cent.
Mandate said the pay award was inadequate and was imposed on workers despite the trade union putting in a pay claim for 6 per cent this year.
“Tesco is a highly profitable company and that’s because of [its] staff,” said Lorraine O’Brien, Mandate general secretary.
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“Tesco sales are up 9.4 per cent in Ireland, their after-tax profits rose by 10 per cent and they paid a dividend of €100 million to the parent company, but wages only went up by 4 per cent in 2024.”
Mandate said it condemns “Tesco’s refusal to engage in meaningful collective bargaining” with its Irish workers. Ms O’Brien said the company had refused to allow union members “to vote on any final proposed agreement”.
Further protests will be announced in the coming days, the trade union said.
A spokeswoman for Tesco said it is the only food retailer in Ireland that recognises trade unions across all its stores.
She said Tesco had engaged with “colleague representatives and their trade unions” in “independently mediated discussions” to agree a new “model of engagement” around proposed pay changes over the past 12 months.
“Unfortunately, we were unable to reach a shared view through that mediation process, but we continue to remain open to re-engaging with the trade unions in the future should they have constructive proposals on how such a model can be achieved [for the benefit of colleagues],” the spokeswoman said.
“In the meantime, we had committed to colleagues to provide certainty on pay in advance of our next review date due in January 2025, and recently announced a €14 million investment in our pay award for hourly paid colleagues for 2025 including a significant enhancement of paid maternity, adoptive and paternity leave for all colleagues in our business.”
Tesco’s Irish arm generated sales of €3.3 billion for the financial year ending in February 2024, 9.4 per cent up on the previous year, accounts filed in Dublin last month revealed.
Tesco Ireland, which operates 178 stores in the Republic, said like-for-like sales grew 6.8 per cent, “driven by strong and consistent volume growth”.
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