‘With just a minimum of 15 hours I can’t even get a loan for a car’

At Dunnes Stores, Clonakilty, Co Cork 21 of the 75 staff rotated shifts on the picket line from 7am until 10pm. The car park remained quiet and most cars that entered turned promptly and left again.

Nicole, a single mum of four, did not want her full name used.

“I’ve got two kids I’m trying to put through college and a young son in school so it’s extremely hard, when I don’t know from one week to the other what my hours are going to be and trying to budget and pay the bills and everything else.

“We want proper contracts, proper hours - just proper working conditions so that we know from week to week that we are going to be okay that we can put food on the table and pay our bills. With just a minimum of 15 hours I can’t even get a loan for a car, they just won’t entertain it,” she said.

Store representative for Mandate Union Padraig O'Reilly has a full time contract but he and his wife Aga can't get a mortgage because she has a work contract with Dunnes Stores for 15 hours per week.

“We want to get the 15 hours contracts wiped out and replaced by banded hour contracts. Many people here who have applied for mortgages or car loans, they can’t get anything from local financial institutions, they are told ‘sorry no’, because the hours are unstable,” he said.

Staff experienced parking problems when they were prohibited from parking their cars in the Dunnes Stores car park at Christmas and Easter.

“This store is different from city stores, we have a low number of staff. The majority of staff are on 30 hours per week, why can’t they just put it on paper?” Mr O’Reilly said.

His wife Aga typically works 35 hours per week.

“We tried for a mortgage but they look at the contracts, even though I am working about 35 hours a week. It’s really hard, we don’t want to live in rented accommodation but we can’t get any loan at the moment because of our contracts.

“He is very lucky he has a full time contract but with my contract we never know what hours I will get or what money I am going to bring to the house,” she said.

Mother of three Amanda (who declined to give her full name) said there has been no animosity been staff that chose to strike and those that did not.

“I enjoy working for Dunnes, it’s a good store to work for but they are not very fair when it comes to contracts and hours. You see lots of people leaving whose contracts have finished and then new staff coming in, so the work is there,” she said.

“I have been asked why I want to go out on strike. Of course we are worried, it’s not going to be nice to go back in afterwards, it’s going to be difficult for all of us. But I do feel it’s worth fighting for.

“At the end of the day we are a team in there and we always will be, everybody here [picketing] has made their own individual decision and we haven’t put pressure on anyone who doesn’t want to go out on strike,” she said.