To: All Mandate Members, Tesco Ireland
Re: Mandate/Tesco WRC Proposals
29th October 2021
Dear Members,
It is now almost a week since we circulated the final pay and rewards proposal document negotiated under the auspices of Workplace Relations Commission with your employer Tesco Ireland and as a result of same, we wanted to take the opportunity to give you a further update.
Over the course of the next five weeks Mandate’s Union Officials will be visiting your store and conducting Union ballots, which will also be another opportunity to answer any further questions on the proposals you may have. Given the absence of any collective bargaining between the Union and your employer over the past five years, the national negotiating team believe it is important that Union Officials engage with you in this way for the purpose of conducting the ballot vote. Over the course of the past week there has been numerous diverse queries regarding the proposals and we will do our very best to give any clarifications you may require.
Experience has shown it has never been easy to come up with a set of proposals that caters for all our members needs identically because of the historical differences that exist when it comes to hourly rates of pay, number/patterns of weekly hours and access to premium hours. Over the past number of months the negotiating teams from both Mandate and SIPTU representatives have attempted to create a set of proposals that deals with this reality in a fair and equitable manner.
Crucially they have endeavoured to consolidate into basic pay rates, elements of premium payments that are not currently guaranteed for the majority of our members and therefore these could be removed unilaterally by management at any time of their choosing. Even in circumstances where they are guaranteed, we have seen examples of Labour Court recommendations offering once off payments only by way of a compensatory buyout. The negotiating team see this indisputable fact as critical and would urge that it is fully considered before judgement is made on the proposal as a whole. It is important to also be aware that these enhanced consolidated rates of pay will also apply to other important terms and conditions such as sick pay, pension contributions and family leave pay going forward.
The views of all our members regarding the current proposal document must now be given space to be articulated and respected. The proposals are being recommended for acceptance by your Mandate and SIPTU national negotiating union teams, as the best achievable from your employer at the negotiating table. Mandate has guaranteed from the start of this process that all our members will determine the outcome of any proposal document in a ballot vote and it is in the spirit of that guarantee that all our members will now for the first time in five years determine whether these proposals form the next collective agreement with your employer. Balloting arrangements for each individual store and times for same will be communicated to members within the various locations in the coming days and we look forward to visiting the various locations safely.
CLICK HERE to view Questions Answered document.
Yours fraternally,
Tesco National Strategy Team.