Workers from Tesco in Douglas will meet with union representatives next week to discuss what course of action they will need to take to secure their jobs and employment contracts. The move follows days of confusion, upset and anger amongst workers at the store who were advised last week that they would have to accept changes to the terms and conditions of their contracts immediately or face redundancy.

Tesco advised staff recently that they would be closing the Douglas store at the end of the month and re-opening a new store at the Douglas Shopping Centre on May 1. Last Friday (April 10), workers from the store received a hand delivered letter to their homes hich stated that they must sign up to new terms and conditions before Tuesday, April 14 or they would be made redundant. This is despite the fact that management had already scheduled a meeting with Mandate representatives to discuss the changes a day later. While the full details of these terms are not known it is understood that they include changes to sick benefits as well changes to overtime payments for former Quinnsworth staff.

Speaking after yesterday's meeting, spokesperson for Mandate, Lorraine O' Brien described the actions by Tesco as "opportunistic" and said that morale amongst workers was "on the floor". She said that Tesco had bypassed the National Replacement Store Agreement in their efforts to change the contracts and said that there was a major issue arising from the fact that if the store imposes redundancies on these staff it will be regarded as "dismissal by redundancy" because the workers are being replaced and that this is illegal.

Local election candidate, Cllr Dominick Donnelly has voiced serious concerns about the move and said that there is a fear amongst workers that this is a test from Tesco to see how they could implement it in other stores. Commenting on the talks, Tesco Communications Manager: Seamus Banim said that the company was not in position to discuss details of the talks.

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