Tesco has been accused of 'corporate bullying' for disciplining 80 striking staff
But the supermarket chain denies targeting workers for their union activities.
GROCERY GIANT TESCO has engaged in a “corporate bullying” campaign to intimidate staff after strikes last year, the industrial relations watchdog has been told.
Trade union Mandate claimed that the retailer was trying to “send a message” to union members and “warn them off engaging in collective industrial action” during a recent Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) hearing.
Mandate claimed that “approximately 80 colleagues from across the country” were subjected to a disciplinary process following their participation in the 2017 strike.
The union described this as a “deliberate act of corporate bullying” and a “campaign of intimidation and retribution” to deter staff from union activity.
“The behaviour meted out … has been used in a calculated way to send a message to union members employed by (Tesco) in an effort to warn them off engaging in collective industrial action in the future,” it added.
At the hearing, Tesco responded that the union’s claims were “simply not the case”. The company said that it is entitled to investigate what it believes to be “instances of unacceptable actions” by any employee and take appropriate action.
Around 1,000 Tesco employees went on strike during a period of industrial action in February 2017. Staff picketed at 16 stores across the country after a dispute relating to long-term workers’ contracts.
Tesco told the WRC that “only those who breached company policy or whose actions meant they could not enjoy the protection inferred on them by the Industrial Relations Act were brought through the disciplinary procedure”.
It added that sanctions “did not relate to trade-union activity”.
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Strike sanctions
The comments were published in an anonymised WRC case relating to the sanctioning of 12 Tesco staff members who worked at a store that had not voted in favour of industrial action but who went to picket at a nearby store instead.
The employees were given a final written warning for participating in “unofficial industrial action” and for absence without leave from work.
Mandate argued that the staff were entitled to strike, but the WRC said that notice was not served for their store therefore any staff that left work to strike in another store were in breach of industrial relations laws.
It said that Tesco was justified in issuing warnings to these employees as their participation in the strike was “unofficial and unauthorised”. Fora understands that Mandate has appealed the rulings to the Labour Court.
In a separate case, Tesco was taken to task by the WRC for suspending a sales assistant for her conduct during the strike.
The worker was suspended for preventing a cash-in-transit worker to enter the supermarket while she was picketing outside and for posting about the strike on Facebook.
The retailer had described this as “unacceptable behaviour”, which interfered with business and put the company’s name into disrepute.
While the WRC decided that some form of disciplinary action “would have been appropriate” for the Facebook posts, it recommended that the employee’s week of suspension without pay, which was imposed in July 2017, should be reversed.
Tesco had not responded to repeated requests for comment at the time of publication.
