Labour Court recommends Tesco Ireland preserve staff terms in store transfer

The Labour Court recommended that Tesco Ireland allow staff associated with the Douglas, Cork store to transfer to its new Extra-format store with their existing terms and working patterns. The recommendation was signed on 8 June 2009. The dispute concerned nine pre-1996 chargehands and general assistants. Mandate Services Industrial Professional Technical Union represented the Retail Workers and opposed changes to their arrangements, including proposed compensation or redundancy options. The Court said Tesco’s practice had been to retain existing terms when staff moved to new stores and saw no compelling reason to depart from it. It also recommended that store-transfer issues be addressed in discussions between Tesco Ireland and the union about a national agreement.