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TESCO HOME DELIVERY WORKERS are set to have their rostered hours changed to no longer include ‘unsociable’ times, losing a higher rate of pay as a result.
The grocery giant is reducing its home order delivery window from 8am-10pm down to 10am-8pm in a move that it claims “reflects the feedback received from our driver colleagues”.
However, the change has caused some discontent because it means workers will no longer receive the time-and-a-half pay rate for working during unsociable hours.
Roster changes will affect home deliver workers and ‘dot com pickers’ who fulfil online orders.
In a statement to The Journal, a Tesco Ireland spokesperson said the change will allow it to “offer increased delivery availability for customers at the times we normally experience the greatest demand for slots”.
“There is no cut to driver hours, rather their hours will change to match the customer delivery hours improving the attractiveness of these important roles, which is in line with their employment contract,” the spokesperson said.
This change will mean that drivers will spend less time caught in peak morning commuter traffic, finishing their shift at an earlier time in the evening and more time delivering to more of our customers.
“In trials, the change has been positively received and reflects the feedback received from our driver colleagues. We are supporting our colleagues through the change.”
But one worker who spoke to The Journal said that the affected employees feel the move is “incredibly unfair given the support and loyalty that colleagues have shown the company throughout the Covid pandemic”.
“Not only did we put our own health at risk but our close family and friends and anyone else associated, so we feel we have no further option than to highlight our grave concerns.”
The worker said they want to have a “fair and transparent work-life balance” and to be treated fairly by Tesco.
Mandate, the trade union that represents Tesco workers, said that the sudden roster changes are unfair to workers.
The union understands that Tesco has offered a once-off compensation payment and a new consolidated pay scale to the affected workers.
However, Assistant General Secretary Jonathan Hogan said that despite the compensation, the new rostering arrangements will result in “massive ongoing annual net losses for current workers”.
One worker in Dublin told the union that her potential loss of earnings over the year could amount to thousands of euros, Hogan said.
Speaking to The Journal, Hogan said that “even before the world started considering the introduction of a vaccine, our members were out there in the grocery sector continually serving the needs of customers”.
“That’s one of the really difficult things about this development is that as we emerge from the pandemic, the first people now that are going to suffer a loss of earnings are retail workers that brought us and Tesco through the pandemic,” he said.
“We’re not talking about people on huge earning levels. Most of these people are on very modest pay rates, any anything from €12.12 an hour, up to about €14.87. Some of them [on older rates] would be higher than that but by and large, they’d be on €14.87.
“The company are offering the consolidated rate, a higher rate, which would bring the top point of the new pay scale up to €15.25, but it still won’t cover the loss of earnings,” he said.
Hogan said that the union learned about the development through members rather than from Tesco directly.
In a statement, he raised the matter of “work-life balance issues” in addition to the financial consequences.
“Over recent years, Tesco Ireland has stepped away from its previous constructive approach to industrial relations and this latest move is, unfortunately, in line with that new approach,” he said.
“No attempt has been made by the company to engage with Mandate Trade Union directly or to ensure that our impacted members are appropriately protected in relation to their overall earning levels.
“Tesco Ireland needs to do much more for these staff than once-off compensation payments and consolidated pay rates which are clearly not enough to protect their current income levels. Instead, they need to engage with their staff’s union representatives and sort the issues out through constructive dialogue.”
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Be interesting to see a more comprehensive breakdown,numbers sold to first time buyers..investors..are the purchasers from Waterford or elsewhere..etc etc
Vulture funds have bought up huge amounts of property so they can dictate the rental market for years to come. You won’t hear much about it as they and Noonan have done a number of deals and it’s not in their interest that it gets back to the people. While they rape the country they receive charitable status and pay little to no tax. Great little country to do business in.
TBH
Very little vulture activity in Waterford, would even go as fas as saying its largely a Dublin issue with such funds or major property decampments.
Not really sure where the property in Waterford is been purchased as there wouldn’t be typical ghosts estates dotted around the city. Building during boom was pretty moderate here so I guess the price rises are just the excess starting to dry up.
@The Guru: The vulture funds are part of the problem. But this is a global issue not an Irish one and it’s caused by global factors – the main one being all that “quantitative easing” that refloated the global asset bubbles after the last crash. That liquidity is now sloshing its way around the globe looking for a return. The response to the financial crisis was a collective bout of can kicking and we’ve now arrived down the road from it.
It’s a record high following a record low. Prices were gone to nothing.
Gone to “nothing”? No – the prices dropped closer to their real value – i.e. Affordable with respect to average income.
That may be hard to swallow for those who fell in to negative equity, but that was the fault of a government who allowed property prices to spiral out of control- as they are again now
Affordablity is one way of looking at it, but if developers cannot build and make a reasonable margin at that price level then little gets built… as is the current case in most of the country.
Waterford and Limerick have a much cheaper property market and have larger margin for increases.
350k for a standard 3 or 4 bed in Dublin? No thanks. Fools and their money.
I grew a beard reading that Rita Cahill no disrespect.
You would be insane to purchase a house at the mo!
Well if you could get a mortgage to buy one 10-20% deposit is easy but the 3.5 cap locks many out
Do you think houses prices are going to drop, Colette?
Hard decision to make, if possible I would continue renting for next 5-6 years before buying a property.
Just wait for the next crash tweety
You buy a house when it’s the right time for you
@Shawn O’Ceallaghan: The 3.5 cap s bollocks and only applicable to one income as you’ll have 2 incomes when buying a family home. I’m self employed, earn 85k a year, and I won;t get a 3.5 times gross mortgage. No way. No where near it. So I have little option but to build.
.
The 3.5 cap is applicable to the total sum of both incomes, if two people are applying of course.
@Tweety McTweeter: With Brexit and Trump the flux in the European Union nobody knows
Have you gone and talked to the bank about a mortgage to purchase? Just curious as I’m in the same boat as you.
Self employed and want to build also, TSB, BOI, AIB, Ulster & EBS all giving me different criteria as I’m self employed. Some will give me 4.5 times my profit, while another will give me 3.5 times my withdrawals from the business. Very strange. All are different. I’d be interested to hear how you get on
People are getting desperate if they’re buying in Waterford. Long commute to the big smoke….The blahs are nice though when fresh.
@Mark Jones: Blahs are muck tbf
You mean blaa’s boi
Irish & there love affair with property ! Up & down we go again.
Why?
Market forces old boy supply and demand
Lot of good jobs were lost in Waterford and only now are some good well paid ones after coming back. The place is very different to 2010/2011 today.
Limerick didnt have the property crash till several years after everyone else due to the government sponsored regeneration scheme. Auctioneers kept prices high knowing that they could get these high prices from regeneration.
Social and “affordable” housing is the reason. Developers building on land that is zoned residential have to give a slice of the houses or a wad of cash in lieu to the council. They want to sell th e houses some time, so they never give the houses. Giving the cash passes the cost of social housing on to the people who buy houses. It makes as much sense as asking a BMW dealer to levy his purchasers in order to buy Hiace pickups for the social guys.
The solution is in the hands of councillors – dezone all residential land, make it mixed use. Developers will come galloping out of the bushes.
@John Considine: That provision existed through the end of the last boom, through the recent semi-bust and continues now. So logically it can’t be the cause of the cycle we’re in.
It’s population increase combined with a supply that can’t/won’t keep pace. But there is no universe in which the supply of housing and other infrastructure can increase at the same rate that population can through net migration combined with natural increase.
“Ireland’s population increased by 170,000 people between 2011 and 2016 – taking into account the average composition of new households of 2 to 2.5 people, this is 75,000 new households in five years…
…Net migration and a natural increase (the surplus of families being formed over families ‘dying’ out) are bringing further pressure to bear on future housing demand.”
Those two are the same point in effect.
@marlowemallow… and what is your solution? Believe me, I talk to councillors, developers, auctioneers etc – any of them will tell you that houses on deboned land are cheaper to build and will sell. Hard truth – no working couple with a huge mortgage want to live amongst social housing neighbours. I once asked the sheriff of a town in upstate NY how there was no crime in his town. He said ‘ I carry a big gun and I’ll use it, and the nearest ‘projects’ are forty miles away in White Plains’.
No crime, lovely place to live. No projects.
Dezoned…
Just a town really
Glad I bought an apartment when I did 2 years ago
@Rita Cahill:
And we thought Wally was bad!
Rita cahill that was an impressive read!
We have sold and bought a house in Waterford City this year and it was easy to sell much harder to buy. We lost out on 3 houses not because we were outbid, but because they were cash buyers. Pharma and IT sectors are attracting people to settle and buy here and can afford to do so. However demand is high and supply is low with the newer housing estates in lesser desirable areas. I think more houses will need to be built to free up homes for the rental market also.
Ireland’s population increased by 170,000 people between 2011 and 2016. I wonder where the problem is?
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