Tesco giant wants workers to pay for executives' mistakes with pay cuts

TESCO'S move to force 1,100 with over 20 years service sign new contracts with worse pay and conditions has been criticised by retail union Mandate and Sinn Féin.

The move would see these workers’ hourly rate reduced to €11.97, a cut of almost €3 in most cases, and certain entitlements cut as well.

Tesco wants to switch staff employed on contracts before 1996 to terms agreed with trade unions in 2006 depite it being assumed that the conditions of the pre-1996 staff would be honoured and untouched.

Tesco is reported to have 24% of the Irish market but won't reveal how profitable its operation in Ireland is. Its parent company in Britain reported large losses last year due to management strategy to combat the expansion of Aldi and Lidl.

Mandate Assistant General Secretary Gerry Light said that staff earning no more than €13 an hour should not be paying the price for corporate mistakes:

“The reality is that we’ve a substantial, very profitable supermarket business attempting to cut the wages of relatively low-paid workers who are their longest and most loyal staff in terms of service.”

Sinn Féin Senator David Cullinane (pictured), the party's spokesperson on Workers' Rights, said this sort of move by employers is typical of “a race to the bottom, and all under the false guise of competitiveness”.

He said:

“Tesco Ireland is one of the most profitable companies in the state. This is another example of a profitable company rowing back on workers’ pay.”

He added:

“I have spent five years debating with Fine Gael ministers and representatives in the Seanad and in the Oireachtas Jobs Committee on these issues. They try their best to conceal their anti-trade union policies and anti-worker policies but scratch the surface and it’s there. Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton uses words like competitiveness, flexibility, and attractiveness to justify exploitation and a growing low-wage economy.

“The irony is that stronger-performing economies have better rates of pay, better employment rights and better public services.

“Building the recovery on low-paid jobs and a hollowing out of workers’ rights is not sustainable or fair.

“The notion of decent work for decent pay is alien to a small number of employers and to any Fine Gael-led Government. An Taoiseach rattles out a line about ‘making work pay’; this betrays the disgusting ideology which tolerates greed and a race to the bottom which can only harm workers.”