The Labour Court recommended that Tesco Ireland Ltd, Mandate Trade Union and the Service Industrial Professional Technical Union spend eight weeks in local talks over changes to workers’ pre-1996/1997 contracts. The process should focus on flexibility suited to each store and its local and individual circumstances, guided generally by proposals from the Workplace Relations Commission.
The unions said the remaining 300 workers should keep their existing contracts unless they agreed to changes. Tesco said the old contracts did not meet the needs of a competitive grocery business. More than 700 workers on the old contracts had taken voluntary redundancy during the engagement process.
The Court said the existing terms arose from voluntary collective agreements and should remain in place until replaced, while good industrial relations required continued engagement as business conditions changed. If the parties could not agree on the effectiveness of local talks, they could refer the issue back to the Court. If local engagement showed no clear prospect of resolution, the Court recommended accepting the WRC proposals as a national resolution. The recommendation was signed on 21 November 2016.