Tesco workers to strike over conditions

Some 80 workers at a Tesco supermarket in Douglas, Cork are to go on strike from next Wednesday, a union spokesperson confirmed this afternoon.

The action comes as a result of a dispute with management over pay and working conditions.

The members of the Mandate trade union are due to transfer to a newly-built store in Douglas on Friday May 1.

They have accusing management of attempting to force staff to sign-up to new inferior employment contracts with the move by threatening compulsory redundancy.

Mandate assistant general secretary Linda Tanham said: "Tesco’s behaviour is an opportunistic attack on workers standards of living at a time when the company is more profitable than ever before.

"The workers are under no illusion as to what’s currently taking place in Tesco. They recognise that industrial action is always a last course of action, however, they realise what is coming down the line and they are quite clearly prepared to fight for the protection of their wages, terms and conditions and obviously their standards of living."

Tesco say that the increase in cross-border shopping has led to a reduction in business for the company in the Republic. The firm has not released its financial results for Ireland, however.