Mandate Trade Union to engage with Superquinn in rebranding exercise

Wednesday 7 August 2013

Mandate Trade Union today welcomed the guarantee made by Superquinn to protect terms and conditions of employment during the strategic realignment of their brand.

The union added that their number one priority over the coming months will be to prioritise the needs of those members who are likely to lose their jobs in the Lucan based head office facility.

Mandate Assistant General Secretary, Gerry Light said, “In the coming weeks, we will sit down with management to discuss their situation and do everything in our power to insist they are given the best possible range of options in terms of redeployment and redundancies.”

He added, “We have sought assurances from the company to engage in a meaningful manner in an effort to secure the effective and agreed implementation of the company’s plans and we’re satisfied that they will.

“We welcome the absolute guarantee being offered that the vast majority of our members will have their existing terms and conditions protected.

“Regrettably, this does not apply to the 102 workers in Lucan who have been given the devastating news that they have lost their jobs,” he said.

“Sadly, we have to accept the reality that the iconic Superquinn brand has struggled over the last number of years to maintain its once healthy position held within the Irish retail grocery supermarket sector.

“In recent years a number of contributory factors led to this, principally the uncertainity which has arisen from changes in ownership and also the decline in consumer spending which is a direct consequence of the austerity policies persued by successive governments.

“The Musgrave Group have now moved to secure what’s left of the established core Superquinn business along with the majority of the 2,500 jobs in the company. It’s high time that our government put an end to its austerity programme and instead introduces tangible measures which will boost consumer confidence not only in this but in all other Irish based retail businesses,” Mr Light concluded.