MANDATE TRADE UNION ACCUSE DUNNES STORES IN KILKENNY OF TAKING ADVANTAGE OF RECESSION BY REDUCING WORKERS HOURS
Wednesday 15 April 2009Mandate trade union has accused Dunnes Stores in Kilkenny of playing off the recession and driving their workers standards of living down in the pursuit of unrealistic profits.
The union said that many of the staff in the Kieran Street store have had their hours reduced to 15 hours per week and have complained that they just simply can’t live on the income paid by the company.
Bill Kelly, Divisional Organiser for Mandate said, “Many workers employed in the Kieran Street store are only given 15 hours each week and are rostered 5 days over 7. That’s only 3 hours per day and if they request a specific day off, their hours are often reduced to 10 hours per week.”
Mr Kelly continued, “More senior staff have had their hours slashed by one third, a loss of over 100 euro per week. Weekend staff are also being rostered for 10 to 12 hours per week.
Mr Kelly said that the behaviour of Dunnes is a huge concern for Mandate and the union will be giving the situation some serious consideration.
“It is Mandate’s understanding that Dunne’s is still a very profitable company. It seems clear from their actions that their only motive is to ensure the company maintains high levels of profits on the backs of vulnerable workers.”
Mr Kelly concluded by saying, “Mandate has said previously that as a trade union we will not tolerate company’s using the recession as a means to erode workers standards of living. We will behave in a reasonable manner should a company be in genuine financial difficulty, but under no circumstances will we accept such indiscriminate reductions in hours without legitimate cause to do so.”
