Workers at a branch of Tesco in Douglas, Co Cork have voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action over the company’s plans not to honour established terms and conditions for staff moving to a new store in the area.
Mandate, the union representing the 80 workers at the Douglas branch of the multinational retailer, says the company is ignoring a long standing agreement with the union guaranteeing workers transferring to new premises the right to hold onto their current terms and conditions.
The Tesco store in Douglas is due to move to new premises on May 1st next. The union says the company has said openly it is not willing to accept all staff members from the old store on their current contracts.
They say the company is using the using the transfer of workers to a new store "opportunistically" as a means to erode terms and conditions in order to maintain unrealistic profit levels.
Lorraine O'Brien, Mandate's divisional organiser in Cork, said the decision to strike was a "very difficult one for workers to make."
"Nobody wants to go on strike, especially in the current economic climate and these workers are no different," she said.
"However, when faced with a threat, not only to the maintenance of their terms and conditions, but also to their standards of living in order that the company continue to pursue ridiculous profit margins, it's clear that the workers feel this is a fight worth fighting."
"Tesco has said that the company is not willing to accept the transfer of staff members from the old store who have pre-1996 contracts. Instead, the company has offered staff members a choice of either a compulsory buyout of their terms and conditions or alternatively, the worker will be dismissed by means of redundancy," she added.
The union is concerned that if the company is allowed to proceed with these cuts in terms and conditions, it could lead to a process whereby all negotiated contracts and agreements with the union would be ignored. This, they argue, could have serious implications for the 12,000 workers in Tesco in the Republic of Ireland.
In a statement this morning Tesco said seven members of staff had failed to agree with the move to the new store.
"It is disappointing that these seven staff members continue to have issues with the terms offered to them. These relate to former roles not available in the new store and historical overtime levels which are no longer appropriate in the new store," it said.
"We regret that just seven existing members of staff have failed to agree with the move to the new store. This could delay the opening and threaten the long term sustainability of the store impacting adversely
on jobs and consumers in the Douglas area."
The company said it had offered generous compensation terms "to buy out these differences" as redundancy was not the "preferred option."
It said it remained available for further discussions with local union representatives or through an independent third party.
News of the strike comes after Tesco announced this morning it had made record profits of over £3.1 billion for the full year.