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Activist 60: Tesco Pay Deal Special

- Thousands of Tesco workers are set to lose hundreds of pounds in pay due to cuts to overtime, weekend, and night-shift bonuses as part of new contracts. - Meanwhile, Tesco CEO Dave Lewis received £4.1 million in his first six months as boss in 2015, while workers will see their premium pay cut and rely more on government subsidies. - Usdaw, which represents 160,000 Tesco workers, has been characteristically quiet on this issue, while workers in Ireland have been organizing mass meetings to fight similar attacks on their pay and conditions. Workers and reps call on Usdaw to do more to lead the fight, including calling meetings and considering industrial action.

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2K views2 pages

Activist 60: Tesco Pay Deal Special

- Thousands of Tesco workers are set to lose hundreds of pounds in pay due to cuts to overtime, weekend, and night-shift bonuses as part of new contracts. - Meanwhile, Tesco CEO Dave Lewis received £4.1 million in his first six months as boss in 2015, while workers will see their premium pay cut and rely more on government subsidies. - Usdaw, which represents 160,000 Tesco workers, has been characteristically quiet on this issue, while workers in Ireland have been organizing mass meetings to fight similar attacks on their pay and conditions. Workers and reps call on Usdaw to do more to lead the fight, including calling meetings and considering industrial action.

Uploaded by

USDAWactivist
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© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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the Activist

Issue 60
Tesco Pay Special

Bulletin of Socialist Party members in

Tescos betrayal Hannett must go!


Thousands of workers at
Tesco, the UKs largest private sector employer, are set
to lose hundreds of pounds
in pay.
The new pay deal suggests
many of the 310,000 workers
will have overtime, weekend
and night-shift bonuses cut
as part of new contracts.
Staff who receive double
time for working Sundays
and bank holidays will have
their pay slashed to time-and
-a-half. Premiums currently
available for those working
between 10pm and 6am will
now only be available between midnight and 6am.
And overtime previously paid
at time-and-a-half or double
time will now be at the normal single rate which will affect the majority of Tesco
workers who are on parttime contracts and low pay
and who rely on overtime to
pay the bills.
This follows similar moves in
Morrisons & the Co-op where
long fought for premium

payments have been


surrendered for pay
deals that put pay
only just above the
governments living
wage.
The government already subsidises big
business 11 billion a
year to top up the
wages of 5.2 million
low-paid workers including many -supermarket and industrial action disworkers - in the form of tax cussed by the union so that
credits and other benefits.
the strength of the 160,000
Usdaw members in Tesco is
Meanwhile Tesco CEO Dave used to fight against low pay
Lewis received 4.1 million in and attacks on conditions.
his first six months as boss in
2015. As one Tesco worker We say:
said this week: I'd rather
Hannett must go!
have a living wage than sup-
Stop the race to the
port the lifestyles of sharebottom in terms and
holders.
conditions

For a living wage of 10


A third of Usdaws members
an hour AND premium
are in Tesco and who are
payments
committed to fighting for a
The Broad Left should
living wage, have been charcall an emergency
acteristically quiet and lackmeeting of all those
ing in fight over the issue. A
wanting a serious fight
vote on pay deals should be
for such demands.
restored to Tesco workers

Find out more: usdawactivist.wordpress.com / usdawactivist@gmail.com / Facebook: Usdaw Activist

Bulletin of Socialist Party members in USDAW

Your views - reps and union members comments


I almost laughed when I was
told by my manager that I
was getting a pay rise. From
July I will be paid 23p more
an hour. Great, whats not to
like? But I almost laughed because Id already seen page
four of the leaflet we were
given which explains the
changes to premiums, the
changes being cuts. Cuts to
Sunday, overtime and night
working premiums - all of
which I rely on the make my
pay packet resemble a living
one.

Thats why I almost laughed.


I didnt though because there
is nothing funny about struggling to make ends meet. And
while Im not getting a rise,
there are other people I work
with, especially part-timers
and night staff who are getting a pay cut due to the loss
of premiums!

I start work at 5am meaning


at the moment I get 2.18 on
top of my hourly rate for the
first hour of my shift each
day, I work Sundays so get
time-and-a-half for that and
the same rate when I do
overtime which is pretty often. All this is being cut (as
reported in last weeks issue)
meaning that I wont be getting a pay rise at all.

There is another group of


workers fighting attempts to
cut their pay and make them
work unsociable hours who
also dont have a tradition of
taking strike action at present. Those are the junior
Ive also seen photos on doctors who have taken 2
Facebook of mass meetings days worth of strike action so
in Ireland called by the Tesco far.
workers union there. This
gives me confidence we can If the junior doctors can do it,
fight and I think Usdaw why cant retail workers? Call
meetings and protests to engage the members as a step
towards working out a strategy for industrial action which
as well as strikes could include work-to-rule.

I became a trade union rep to


make the working lives of my
colleagues better but I felt I
was doing the opposite when
breaking the news of the pay
deal to them. I wish I could
do more. I work on the back
door and regularly talk to
drivers and distribution workers who still have a vote on
pay and have threatened taking industrial action.

One of several meetings to fight similar attacks on Irish Tesco workers organised by Mandate trade union - why cant Usdaw do the same here?

should do more to lead that


fight, this is why I became a
rep and my members pay
their subs.

First co-op, then Morrisons,


now this in Tesco - do our
leaders think we enjoy working weekends? Are they so
doomed to defeat by lacklustre campaigning on Sunday
trading that they think we
should treat it as a normal
working day already.

Usdaws leadership help


Tesco management make us
pay for their mistakestime
we taught them both a lesson.

Find out more: usdawactivist.wordpress.com / usdawactivist@gmail.com / Facebook: Usdaw Activist

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