TRADE UNIONS representing 2,500 Superquinn staff have called for an urgent meeting with senior management at the store as concerns about the future ownership of the retail company mount.
The retailer has been the subject of ongoing takeover speculation for more than two years, with Sainsbury’s, Waitrose and Asda often identified as potential overseas buyers and Dunnes Stores and Musgraves, the company which owns the Supervalu chain, touted as the most likely local suitors.
While Superquinn has repeatedly denied it is for sale the rumours have continued, and Musgraves has re-entered the frame in recent days having made tentative approaches to Superquinn, according to some reports.
No one from the company was available to make any comment last night either on the rumours of a potential sale or on the call from the unions for a meeting with management.
Gerry Light, assistant general secretary of the union Mandate, said recent media speculation about the possible sale of Superquinn had caused unease among the company’s staff regarding the future of their jobs.
“Because of staffs’ understandable concerns we have now written to Superquinn management seeking an urgent meeting so that we get clarification about what precisely is going on about the future ownership of the company.”
The unions involved include Mandate, Siptu and the bakers’ union.
Mr Light said it was “rather ironic that at the very time the Government was launching its jobs initiative speculation had started about the future of one of the country’s largest retailers”.
He claimed the starting point of any jobs initiative was jobs retention “and we in the Superquinn group of trade unions are determined to ensure that the 2,500 jobs at this company are retained as well as the jobs at the retailer’s suppliers and service providers, which would be in the range of 3,000 staff”.
Feargal Quinn, who founded Superquinn in 1960, sold it for a reported €450 million to Select Retail Holdings more than five years ago.
It recently opened stores in Rathgar, south Dublin, and at Heuston Station.
However, in 2009 it shed 400 jobs and closed a loss-making store in Dundalk, while in February it announced it was to close its Naas branch with a loss of 100 retail jobs.