The Government looks set to unveil an unprecedented income-support scheme in the coming days in which it will pay 75% or 80% of the wages of the thousands of workers who have lost and will lose their jobs amid the Covid-19 crisis.

The Irish Congress of Trade Unions’ biennial conference in Dublin must mark “the beginning of a renewed effort to secure the right to collective bargaining for all workers”, according to general secretary Patricia King.

One in 10 retail workers suffers physical abuse, while 44% have been subject to verbal abuse.

Tesco says its Sligo store will remain open during a strike by workers there tomorrow.

A union representing 40,000 retail and bar workers wants its members to be paid a minimum of €15 per hour — more than 50% higher than the national minimum wage.

Almost half of the of the unpaid wages secured by the Workplace Relations Commission last year were for workers in the hospitality and retail sectors.

All strike action at Tesco stores is being suspended.

Unions have demanded that private sector workers receive a €1,000 pay hike next year.

The Government has avoided a prospective controversy as John Halligan will be out of the country when an opposition water bill, which he signed before entering government, comes before the Dáil.

Trade unions at Tesco are to ballot amembers in the retail giant for industrial action over what they say is the refusal by the company to give pay increases to 1,000 of its long-serving staff, as well as imposing inferior contracts on the same workers.

Dublin’s Arnotts department store has been officially bought out by Selfridges, owned by Galen Weston and his Irish wife Hilary Weston.

We bring you a round up of all the latest news and reviews from the world of entertainment.

Anti-Irish Water campaigners have accused Environment Minister Alan Kelly of morphing into ex-minister Phil Hogan by increasingly “threatening” people who don’t pay their bill.

MUSIC NEWS: Is it really eight years since the last New Order album? The Manc electronica outfit have announced a new release, Music Complete, for September 25, complete with keyboard player Gillian Gilbert, albeit without bass player Bernard Sumner who has been estranged from the band since 2007.

A TD claims her children have been subjected to “vile” online abuse after she criticised people who refused to pay water charges but spent money on “beer and smokes” instead.

Workers at Dunnes Stores in Gorey, County Wexford, have turned up for work this morning, despite the closure of the retail outlet on Thursday.

Mandate has condemned Dunnes Stores for using staff as pawns in a property dispute over a side entrance.

There are fears for the future of up to 100 workers at Dunnes Stores in Gorey after workers were told the store was to close “immediately”.

Workers at Dunnes Stores may escalate their campaign of industrial action in its row with management of the supermarket chain.

Trade unions that are currently leading a nationwide campaign against water charges are to drive plans to set up a left-wing political movement.

A new Low Pay Commission will report back to the Government on changes to the €8.65 minimum wage by July, ministers have said.

THOUGH just over a debilitating chest infection, singer-song writer Eddi Reader is full of the joys of life and music.

The Coalition will make a last-ditch attempt to quell public anger over water charges with a massive climb-down which will see bills for an average family slashed by more than a third of what was announced in the summer.

A campaign group has claimed Irish Water’s entire "economic viability" will be put at risk by Government plans to cut fees and delay customer bills — unless future price hikes have been secretly planned.

The Cabinet is today expected to agree a short delay in the introduction of water charges as part of a new package of measures to be announced tomorrow.

By Mary Regan, Irish Examiner Political Editor

The country’s largest retail union has revealed it has secured more than €20m in pay increases for its members in only the last two years.

Retail giant Dunnes Stores secretly spied on staff who were suspected of eating food at a store’s deli counter without paying.

Cork financier Ted Cunningham undertook to resign as director of a finance company yesterday and not pursue any such work in the future as he was given a five-year suspended jail sentence for laundering money from the Northern Bank robbery of 2004.

Cork financier Ted Cunningham confessed for the first time yesterday to laundering money from the Northern Bank robbery of 2004. He will be sentenced on February 27.

Circumstantial evidence in the money-laundering trial will include ‘unorthodox’ ways in which the accused, Timothy Cunningham allegedly handled money, including his arrival at the home of a jewellers with over £200,000 (€244,000) in Northern Irish sterling in Tesco bags, which the jeweller hid under his parents’ bed.

Unions have urged the Government to give €10m to charities and increase the minimum wage, claiming that food poverty affects far more people in some counties than the one in 10 national average.

One in 10 people suffers food poverty across the country, new figures have revealed.

Supermarket workers who went on strike for almost three years over the import of goods from apartheid South Africa are set to attend Nelson Mandela’s funeral.

Trade union leaders are organising a mass demonstration in Dublin against austerity ahead of the Budget.

Staff at four Marks & Spencer stores being closed as part of a strategic review, are to mount strike pickets outside their workplaces from Sept 10.

Staff at the four Marks and Spencer stores earmarked for closure have voted overwhelmingly in favour of industrial action.

Trade union members are threatening to picket a Limerick auction house today where a five-shilling note printed by workers who set up a soviet in the city in 1919 is due to be sold.

Industrial unrest is brewing at Dublin department store Arnotts where the pension scheme is to be wound up meaning “upwards of 50%” of entitlements for existing workers could be lost.

About one third of workers in one of the country’s leading unions are having difficulties feeding and clothing their families after wage cuts, a survey shows.

Government hopes of securing a yes vote in the looming EU referendum were dealt a double blow as a major trade union came out against the fiscal compact treaty, and it emerged more than half of voters have little or no idea what they are meant to be deciding on.

The Social Protection Minister Joan Burton has described as "disappointing" the decision by Mandate to call for a No vote in the EU Fiscal Treaty referendum next month.

The Mandate Trade Union is urging its 45,000 members to vote No in the EU Fiscal Treaty referendum.

Up to 300 delegates from the trade union Mandate will decide today how to advise its members to vote in the Fiscal Treaty referendum.