Staff at M&S stores due for closure ballot for strike action

Staff at four Marks & Spencer stores are being balloted for strike action in a dispute that is threatening to escalate into a nationwide action.

The 180 staff at the British retailer’s Dun Laoghaire, Mullingar, Naas, and Tallaght stores are being balloted after talks at the Labour Relations Commission failed. Mandate trade union, which represents the workers, said the company has refused to discuss alternatives to compulsory redundancy notices issued to its members in those stores last week.

Mandate assistant general secretary Gerry Light said the failure by management to discuss alternatives had left the union with no option but to initiate the ballot.