Tesco workers vote in favour of strike

Tesco workers at 75 branches nationwide have voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action to support their claim for improved pay and conditions.

A series of one-day strikes involving 9,500 retail workers is expected to begin during the week commencing June 25th.

93 per cent of Mandate and SIPTU members balloted approved the proposal for industrial action. 4,312 workers voted in favour and 322 voted against, with 11 spoilt votes.

The decision to strike follows the failure of the company and the two unions to reach any agreement during two weeks of talks at the Labour Relations Commission in May.

Mandate industrial officer, Mr John Douglas, said Tesco management had consistently failed to take the union’s claims seriously: "The company’s position at talks held under the Labour Relations Commission was contemptible and could not be taken as a genuine attempt to tackle the low pay issue at Tesco," he said. Mandate represents about 9,000 Tesco workers.

Mandate and SIPTU want an increase in the basic rates of pay for workers, which currently begin at £4.85 per hour and reach £7.40 per hour after ten years of service. Last year, the company’s profits increased by 13 per cent to £1.17 billion.

The unions also want an end to pay differences between urban and rural areas, the introduction of profit-sharing schemes in line with those currently available to Tesco’s UK employees, and shift allowances for unsociable hours.

"Shift premium is the only way of compensating employees for having to work anti-social hours, and its introduction in the retail sector has already been delayed for far too long," Mr John Kane, National Industrial Secretary for SIPTU, said.

Tesco said the result of today’s ballot was expected, but that the process had been conducted before industrial relations procedures had been exhausted.

The company said staff had not yet been balloted on its pay offer, under which some workers would receive increases of 17 per cent per year.