Tesco is seeking to cut pay and conditions for longer-serving staff in its Irish operation, and staff that have worked there for more than 20 years have been approached to sign new contracts, reports RTE.
The changes to pay and conditions would affect 6% of the company’s 14,500 employees and comes after the retailer posted its biggest ever loss of around €9 billion last April.
The company has reportedly acknowledged that the the staff affected will suffer a drop in pay and conditions, but it cannot yet calculate the extent of the cut because of variable factors like overtime.
In 1996, Tesco negotiated a contract with Mandate Trade union that governed its pay and conditions in Ireland, and in 2006 renegotiated a ‘modern’ contract that took changing working hours and retail patterns into account.
RTE says that the retailer now hopes to move 1,000 of its longer serving staff from the 1996 contract to the ‘modern’ contract to make sure its staff can be rostered for peak customer traffic times.
A spokesperson told RTE that Tesco will address the issue of compensation in its negotiations with unions in the coming weeks, and stressed that it is not seeking job cuts and does not use what the spokesperson called unreliable "if and when" contracts of employment.
© 2016 - Checkout Magazine by Jenny Whelan.
