Tesco workers to go on strike in the lead up to Christmas Day

Tesco workers in Sligo and Carrick-on-Shannon are going on strike.

It comes as the shop workers at the Carrick-on-Shannon branch will take industrial actions today, however they have now added more dates. Employees have planned to take further industrial action on December 22, and Sligo workers will strike on December 21 and 22. Mandate General Secretary John Douglas said:

"Our members do not want to be on strike. No worker does. But when a major multinational and highly profitable retailer is constantly undermining your working conditions and your right to be represented by your trade union, you are not left with many options." "You can either roll over and take it, or you can fight back and I commend the Sligo and Carrick-on-Shannon workers for choosing to fight back."

Tesco has now issued a response following the confirmation of further action:

"The store will be fully open from 8am until 10pm and will continue to offer all of Tesco’s range of products. "Despite the disruption, we hope customers will come to the store in the very significant numbers as they did last week when another unwelcome one-day disruption was inflicted on Sligo, its businesses and their employees.  We regret this action by Mandate for our customers in the run up to Christmas. "Tesco condemns this further unnecessary one-day strike by Mandate and its plan to run additional two-day stoppages next week in Sligo and a one-day stoppage in Carrick-on-Shannon.  This strike action by Mandate is outside the company and union’s agreed procedures and it is reckless by Mandate to unnecessarily disrupt these stores and these two towns when they should be benefitting from peak Christmas trade.   "This unwarranted strike action at this busy time in a very competitive market place will detrimentally impact our customers and therefore the stores and our colleagues in the long term."