Bailieboro Tesco mandate staff to be balloted

Bailieborough's Tesco staff attached to the Mandate trade union will be balloted next week with a view to extending a campaign of industrial action elsewhere across the country.

Mandate members commenced an indefinite strike earlier this week in eight stores: Baggot Street, Ballyfermot Road and Clearwater Finglas in Dublin, as well as stores in Tralee, Longford, Navan, Tullamore, and Bray.
Eight more stores will commence industrial action on Friday, with a further 22 stores are to be balloted from Monday next week. Bailieborough staff will be balloted on Wednesday, February 22.
The dispute centres on Tesco wanting to move 250 staff recruited before 1996 on todifferent contracts.
Mandate, however, insist the change would affect its workers in terms of both pay and conditions.

An outcome on the local ballot is expected to be made known that same evening.
Staff at the Bailieborough store, which opened in 2008, have previously been before the Labour Courts regarding entitlement for pay for their 15-minute breaks.

Some 250 Tesco staff nationally continue to resist the contract move, and have rejected a Labour Court recommendation on the row.
Tesco, meanwhile, insist that all affected stores will remain open, and have urged Mandate to accept the Labour Court recommendation.
It is claimed that a third of all Tesco stores balloted had rejected industrial action, and that in stores balloted, fewer than half of all employees considered actually voted for strike action.
“Tesco and our colleagues remain shocked that Mandate is still going ahead with this strike and that the union has advised customers to shop in non-unionised competitor stores,” said a spokesperson for the company.