'Respect your Workers' - Protests take place at Tesco Ardkeen

Members of the Mandate Trade Union launched public protests on Thursday, December 12, the first of which took place at 10am at Tesco Ardkeen.

Mandate say that the protests are due to "Tesco management’s decision to deny workers their right to be represented by their trade union and refusing to agree to an adequate pay increase". 

A spokesperson said the protests will continue until Tesco agrees to “respect their workers”.

Mandate has negotiated on behalf of Tesco workers with the company since it entered the Irish market in 1997.

However, in recent years, Mandate says that Tesco management have refused to collectively bargain and instead imposed pay awards on workers.

“Tesco is a highly profitable company and that’s because of their staff,” said Lorraine O’Brien, Mandate General Secretary.

“Tesco sales are up 9.4 percent in Ireland, their after tax profits rose by 10 percent and they paid a dividend of €100 million to the parent company, but wages only went up by 4% in 2024.

“The company announced a 3 percent increase for 2025, which is only half the pay claim of 6 percent that we lodged a number of months ago,” she added.

Ms O’Brien added: “The company’s actions can only be seen as a clear act of bad faith tantamount to textbook union-busting tactics.

“Tesco’s refusal to allow union members to vote on any final proposed agreement exposes the undemocratic nature of the company’s actions and exposes the myth that Ireland’s voluntarist industrial relations system is a level playing field for all parties.

“We will continue to engage with our members across the country to ensure that they receive Fair Play and Fair Pay. Our message is simple, Tesco Respect Your Workers."

The Waterford News & Star approached Tesco Ireland for comment today.

A spokesperson said: "Tesco is the only food retailer in Ireland to recognise trade unions across all of our stores.

"Over the past 12 months, we engaged in agreed independently mediated discussions with colleague representatives and their trade unions (initiated by Tesco) to try to agree a new model of engagement that would provide for timely and definitive outcomes where any proposed changes, including pay, would benefit from negotiations. 

"Unfortunately, we were unable to reach a shared view through that mediation process, but we continue to remain open to reengaging with the trade unions in the future should they have constructive proposals on how such a model can be achieved (for the benefit of colleagues).

"In the meantime we had committed to colleagues to provide certainty on pay in advance of our next review date due in January 2025, and recently announced a €14million investment in our pay award for hourly paid colleagues for 2025 including a significant enhancement of paid maternity, adoptive and paternity leave for all colleagues in our business."