Dunnes workers to strike

Eric Cartman

BoatMad wrote: »

I suspect the problem at Dunnes is more to do with the relationship issues then specifics . There are loads of businesses with low hour contracts , whose employees are not on strike

+1 , I would imagine a lot of it has to do with UNITE coming in, putting diamonds in their eyes and pretending a union can get them all 15-30 hours a week, 11-12 quid an hour, never work weekends and a new puppy for christmas.

There are far worse conditions in a lot of places, but its kept quiet because theyre not a good headline for the unions.

BoatMad

Eric Cartman wrote: »

+1 , I would imagine a lot of it has to do with UNITE coming in, putting diamonds in their eyes and pretending a union can get them all 15-30 hours a week, 11-12 quid an hour, never work weekends and a new puppy for christmas.

There are far worse conditions in a lot of places, but its kept quiet because theyre not a good headline for the unions.

when the union tried to come into my business, I joined it , funny, when my kids wanted piercings, my wife got one instead. funny nobody wanted to be in the union, and none of my kids got a piercing !!!!

union went away them

Full Marx

Only a fool would not join a union - they are the reason we enjoy what rights we have as workers. They also offer invaluable expertise and assistance if you find yourself in any kind of dispute with your employers.

I fully support the Dunnes workers and will be sure to drop down on Holy Thursday to offer those on the picket line some encouragement. It's an intolerable situation where you might be working a 30 odd hour week every week for years but only have a 15 (or less) hour contract. This means you have little in the way of job security and cannot make any long term plans or purchases. It's unfair.

BoatMad

Full Marx wrote: »

Only a fool would not join a union - they are the reason we enjoy what rights we have as workers. They also offer invaluable expertise and assistance if you find yourself in any kind of dispute with your employers.

given the majority of workers are not in a union in ireland, you're calling a lot of people fools, boy.

unions have equally caused the destruction of jobs too,

Eric Cartman

Full Marx wrote: »

Only a fool would not join a union - they are the reason we enjoy what rights we have as workers. They also offer invaluable expertise and assistance if you find yourself in any kind of dispute with your employers.

Well I guess most workers are fools then :rolleyes: why is it that only people in low paid, low skilled jobs with a high staff turnover, public servants or a dying industry are in unions. Very few professionals or people in management seem to have anything to worry about bothered.

I fully support the Dunnes workers and will be sure to drop down on Holy Thursday to offer those on the picket line some encouragement. It's an intolerable situation where you might be working a 30 odd hour week every week for years but only have a 15 (or less) hour contract. This means you have little in the way of job security and cannot make any long term plans or purchases. It's unfair.

this is akin to people banking on a bonus / overtime to pay the mortgage and look where that got us.

Full Marx

BoatMad wrote: »

given the majority of workers are not in a union in ireland, you're calling a lot of people fools, boy.

unions have equally caused the destruction of jobs too,

Boy? Something tells me I shouldn't waste my time engaging with you.

My opinion is that everyone should join a union - obviously this can be tougher in workplaces which have a union hostile management (like Ryanair) but even so there are numerous benefits. Most of the rights we enjoy as workers were hard won by the Trade Union movement - why you would not want to be able to avail of the strength and resources of a trade union is beyond me.

Unless of course you are one of those who resents giving a fair wage and terms and conditions to employees.

Guffy

Would it not make more sense to look at the employers prsi. The higher rate for people earning 359 is clearly the cause of this.

But then again you would be putting people out of work, even if it is 15 hours.

BoatMad

Full Marx wrote: »

Boy? Something tells me I shouldn't waste my time engaging with you.

My opinion is that everyone should join a union - obviously this can be tougher in workplaces which have a union hostile management (like Ryanair) but even so there are numerous benefits. Most of the rights we enjoy as workers were hard won by the Trade Union movement - why you would not want to be able to avail of the straight and resources of a trade union is beyond me.

Unless of course you are one of those who resents giving a fair wage and terms and conditions to employees.

Theres no such thing as a "fair wage" , there is a " minimum wage ", after that labour " value" is a commodity and what you are paid is the market value of what you do. whether you can live on that wage is as much a function of the economy and taxation etc as it id the notional wage

The vast majority of Irish private sector workers choose not to join Unions, even though they are free to do so. If you speak to workers in Pharma, Hi-tech,etc, they see little point in doing so, The same is true for many workers in Ryanair, they know they are better paid then elsewhere.

The trade union in reality made very few changes to the law, that wouldn't have happened anyway . Today the EU is more of a factor then Unions

Ultimately unions cant get you anything, because in todays ultra-mobile capital and overseas outsourcing, there is always some other group that will make it instead of you. All that happens is industry closes and goes out of business. Workers have their pride and no job, !.

Did the unions get the Glass workers their pension, no the ECJ did.

Im not anti union, but your view is from the 20s

BoatMad

I fully support the Dunnes workers and will be sure to drop down on Holy Thursday to offer those on the picket line some encouragement. It's an intolerable situation where you might be working a 30 odd hour week every week for years but only have a 15 (or less) hour contract. This means you have little in the way of job security and cannot make any long term plans or purchases. It's unfair.

what job security does anyone have these days outside the public service, irrespective of the contract they are on.

whats job security daddy. " son its something only government people have, now go back to your cornflakes"

end of the road

BoatMad wrote: »

The trade union in reality made very few changes to the law, that wouldn't have happened anyway

untrue. there is nothing to say those laws would have happened, or even would have happened near the time they did. the fact is the unions at least brought those changes quicker, and we have a lot to be greatful to them for.

BoatMad wrote: »

Today the EU is more of a factor then Unions

the EU helps a lot of course, but the unions enforce it where they exist.

BoatMad wrote: »

Ultimately unions cant get you anything, because in todays ultra-mobile capital and overseas outsourcing, there is always some other group that will make it instead of you.

they do get a lot. no doubt there are those "do it on the cheep" lot who wouldn't know the meaning of workers rights and who will be used by businesses who would rather bury their heads in the sand then listen to the employees greevences, but if a business threatens to use them rather then listen to staff greevences, then the staff always have the option of putting the business out of business.

BoatMad wrote: »

All that happens is industry closes and goes out of business.

yes, those who don't know the meaning of workers rights, others do engage and a compromise that meets the needs of all is met.

BoatMad wrote: »

Workers have their pride and no job, !.

well sometimes pride and no job is the better option. better it then be treated like rubbish.

BoatMad wrote: »

Did the unions get the Glass workers their pension, no the ECJ did.

maybe the ECJ had more actual powers to do something rather then the union?

BoatMad wrote: »

Im not anti union, but your view is from the 20s

its not, its very much from the present unfortunately.

fly_agaric

Well, one thing unions do provide is the dissenting/contrary voice at times.
Every day we hear so much about what companies and businesses (Ireland Inc) "need" through their lobbyists and the media echo chamber;

It always boils down to getting a free ride off the rest of the society (the state) of which they are supposedly a part:

• to pay as low wages as possible (it is the state's job to make up difference if the low wage is not a living wage)
• to pay as little tax as possible and use every avoidance scheme going if you can afford to pay for the smart accountants and lawyers to set them up (its not illegal you know; its our right to avoid tax!)
• to have the government through the colleges and universities pay for training of their employees (why should we have to pay to train anyone - there'll be less profit, let the state do it)
• to have the government bring in sundry "incentives" (grants, tax rebates, privatisations of public services, intern schemes with govt. funded employees etc) (the state's job is also to tilt the table and defray some risk so we can make more "wealth" to pay to shareholders and managers while avoiding any other taxes we can!)

mcko

I am a member of SIPTU for the last 25 years and work in the private sector, the only thing worse than working in a unionised work place is working in a non union work place, we all give out about our union but without them we would be a lot worse off, over that last few years the company have tried to cut back on pay and conditions but were not as successful as if they had no union to deal with.
A couple of years ago the lab techs got the right to join the union if they wanted and guess what 100% did, not because they were socialist workers, but they saw the value of a trade union in looking after them.
Good employers have nothing to fear from unions. I was at a meeting with our manager last year and he was moaning about the cost of over time and how it could impact the plants future, he was told
1. Don't take on work that we can't afford to do.
2. Take on people to do the work.
3. If the plant is not viable if they pay over time then close the plant now and give us our redundancy cheques.
He left with his tail between his legs, what did he think we would all tremble and agree with him, at times you have to say no or where will cuts end.

Sheldons Brain

Deleted User wrote: »

Retail is fickle. Sure you see certain people come in on the same day every week but by and large people shop around a hell of a lot more these days. You can't depend on people's business every week anymore.

Individuals may be fickle, but the aggregate flows in supermarkets are relatively stable and the point of sale systems provide a lot of data to analyse.

Some flexibility is needed, but my point is that there is a balance and that balance might give significantly more predictable schedules to staff while not making a material difference to the employer.

razzler

One of the biggest issues staff have is when their hours are are cut back and new staff are hired, on minimum wage and full hours. Of course it's to save money on wages but it's morally wrong. A yrar and a half ago approx. when Dunnes wasn't being challenged, the staff on the flexi contracts (15 hours) were having their hours cut back to 15 to 20 a week. Meanwhile the place was awash with new hires on full hours but minimum wage. Lots of staff complained using the "open door" policy that management claim to have but were told that's the way it is, can't be changed. That's why the union is necessary. To add insult to injury, the staff are given the job of training the new hires who will be taking their hours. Dunnes gave the pay increase readily enough because they could offset it by a cut in hours. For the busiest retail week of the year, Christmas, I had 12 hrs and last year 16 hours. Striking is a last resort but now necessary and thankfully there is a union there to organise things.

BOHtox

razzler wrote: »

One of the biggest issues staff have is when their hours are are cut back and new staff are hired, on minimum wage and full hours. Of course it's to save money on wages but it's morally wrong. A yrar and a half ago approx. when Dunnes wasn't being challenged, the staff on the flexi contracts (15 hours) were having their hours cut back to 15 to 20 a week. Meanwhile the place was awash with new hires on full hours but minimum wage. Lots of staff complained using the "open door" policy that management claim to have but were told that's the way it is, can't be changed. That's why the union is necessary. To add insult to injury, the staff are given the job of training the new hires who will be taking their hours. Dunnes gave the pay increase readily enough because they could offset it by a cut in hours. For the busiest retail week of the year, Christmas, I had 12 hrs and last year 16 hours. Striking is a last resort but now necessary and thankfully there is a union there to organise things.

Dunnes don't hire anyone on minimum wage. The starting wage for a regular till or floor staff is something like €9.68 and the yearly increments are negligible. Dunnes also do their rosters based on "hours" as opposed to a financial budget i.e. They have may 1000 hours to give and not €1000 euro.
Seeing as there's no financial aspect in cutting back hours of old staff when new are hired, it's purely to get them trained in. Staff who work there full time who rely on Dunnes as their career would rarely see their hours cut. It would be the part time staff who were working stretched hours.

When I was in Dunnes I was given 2 or 3 unscheduled pay increases, add on to that the scheduled ones, and I was able to talk to managers about my availability etc. The current union involvement in completely unnecessary.

razzler

Of coure there is a financial aspect to cutting back hours. Yes, rosters are done by "hours". But reducing hours reduces the wage bill. Or, as Dunnes prefer to do, take hours from higher paid staff and give them to new staff. When the new staff are trained in we see our hours reduced by 1 or 2 days worth of hours per week. This makes a saving of a few euro per hour for the wage budget. We are very aware that staff wages are just another overhead that they want to keep to a minimum. And new staff are hired on min wage, I've asked them. Your manager adjusting your rosters to suit your availability depends on how they feel about you. Those they are more friendly with will be accommodated more often, so staff are not treated equally. A union is very necessary.

end of the road

BOHtox wrote: »

Dunnes don't hire anyone on minimum wage. The starting wage for a regular till or floor staff is something like €9.68 and the yearly increments are negligible. Dunnes also do their rosters based on "hours" as opposed to a financial budget i.e. They have may 1000 hours to give and not €1000 euro.
Seeing as there's no financial aspect in cutting back hours of old staff when new are hired, it's purely to get them trained in. Staff who work there full time who rely on Dunnes as their career would rarely see their hours cut. It would be the part time staff who were working stretched hours.

When I was in Dunnes I was given 2 or 3 unscheduled pay increases, add on to that the scheduled ones, and I was able to talk to managers about my availability etc. The current union involvement in completely unnecessary.

the staff having problems say it is necessary, so therefore the strikes and the union involvement are necessary

BOHtox

razzler wrote: »

Of coure there is a financial aspect to cutting back hours. Yes, rosters are done by "hours". But reducing hours reduces the wage bill. Or, as Dunnes prefer to do, take hours from higher paid staff and give them to new staff. When the new staff are trained in we see our hours reduced by 1 or 2 days worth of hours per week. This makes a saving of a few euro per hour for the wage budget. We are very aware that staff wages are just another overhead that they want to keep to a minimum. And new staff are hired on min wage, I've asked them. Your manager adjusting your rosters to suit your availability depends on how they feel about you. Those they are more friendly with will be accommodated more often, so staff are not treated equally. A union is very necessary.

All of that post is factually incorrect. People starting on minimum wage is complete misinformation. The starting rate is €9.68.

Those working there full time are rarely cut back. And even if they did save "a few euro" it wouldn't even compensate for the fact that the new workers aren't as productive as the staff who were there way longer yet earn marginally more.

Managers change roster availability down to the individual needs of the worker. If a worker cannot work certain hours and said worker is restored in those hours and doesn't go to work when restored in the hours he/she cannot do, it is in everyone's best interest if the roster is changed to reflect that.

The people going on strike are on higher rates than they were when they started. Two unscheduled pay increases have happened in the past two years and employment levels has remained the same. At the same time as the retail sector is on its knees and other companies are reducing pay and employment levels, Dunnes have increased pay twice and kept employment levels constant.

nice_guy80

After working in a business for years on end, you would expect security of work hours, pay increases in terms of experience and responsibility and some sort of job security in the form of a proper contract

in any business, whether that be a supermarket, chip shop, builder, council worker, teacher, nurse whatever.

razzler

Repy to BOHtox post
So staff are going on strike for completely fictional reasons and I who have been there a number of years is either lying or hallucinating? The staff who have guaranteed full hours and can't be cut back are very few. Those contracts are very old and for years now its only flexi (15 hr minimum) being offered. Of course new staff are not as used to the job as existing staff but it doesn't stop Dunnes seeing it as more preferable to reduce the wage cost. And never ever have me or any of my co-workers been able to tell managers when we're available and they roster us to suit that. We'd be told to get real and take a hike. It's the other way around. The roster for the next week goes on the notice board on a Tuesday/Wednesday and that's what we have to work. Varies wildly, could be an 8am-12am or 3pm-10:30pm. That's what flexi was designed for. But a student starting can make it known at the initial interview what time they need off for college and a roster can be worked out to suit their needs (but they often still have problems later, another manager may not honor the inital agreement) but it doesn't happen for regular staff. If a staff has an appointment and it's too late to give the required 4weeks notice to request a day off then they could try to swap shift with another staff but its difficult to do, other person's contract has to match, hours have to be the same, same dapartment and doing same job and willing to swap. And then manager might not agree to it. Situation you describe where we can tell our managers what hours we would like to work and what times would suit us and they will do their very best to please us sounds like Dunnes Dreamland.

TallGlass

I have worked in Tesco until I changed jobs recently. Seen some of the comments here and what the management have said to these workers I feel like joining the picket line.

Don't comment on working in retail unless you have. It's an awfully unfair job for which ever company you work for. Asking for some fairness and stability in your job, this is not a new thing with Dunnes or any retailer. They all treat you like dirt, with so called 'managers' that couldn't manage a piss up in brewery.

In Tesco if you work more than 3 months above/on a certain band then you are moved to that band and are contracted to them hours. I started on 20/25 hours then managed to break into the 30/35 hours band. Always been at the bottom of your band.

Dunnes are covering themselves, there will be job losses from this. I know it, if Dunnes give in people will lose there jobs.

razzler

That's what the union is trying to achieve for us, banded hours contracts with a minium of 25 hours guaranteed. .

bladebrew

I used to work in Dunnes, the store I was in had 4 staff on full time (37.5hour) so the entire grocery section had 4 people guaranteed those hours, everyone else was on flexi,
One week the person in the same section as me went on holidays so I got 37.5 the next week was about 22, so your money is almost halved, nobody could live long term on that, I left for a guaranteed 40 hours plus overtime back when times were better,
People don't really get it until you work in retail it's over a 7 day roster, and I have worked until midnight or started at 8am, so it's difficult to plan anything a week in advance, you do get 5 days every week so you cannot claim anything from social welfare,
There would have to be less staff that is true, but it's easy for Dunnes to Give the staff more stability,

Edit: Dunnes have a history of being very difficult to deal with, they put Whelans transport out of business, and had a dispute with Tayto which resulted in half the crisp section being empty and me being asked every 2 minutes where are all the Tayto!

nice_guy80

bladebrew wrote: »

I used to work in Dunnes, the store I was in had 4 staff on full time (37.5hour) so the entire grocery section had 4 people guaranteed those hours, everyone else was on flexi,
One week the person in the same section as me went on holidays so I got 37.5 the next week was about 22, so your money is almost halved, nobody could live long term on that, I left for a guaranteed 40 hours plus overtime back when times were better,
People don't really get it until you work in retail it's over a 7 day roster, and I have worked until midnight or started at 8am, so it's difficult to plan anything a week in advance, you do get 5 days every week so you cannot claim anything from social welfare,
There would have to be less staff that is true, but it's easy for Dunnes to Give the staff more stability,

Edit: Dunnes have a history of being very difficult to deal with, they put Whelans transport out of business, and had a dispute with Tayto which resulted in half the crisp section being empty and me being asked every 2 minutes where are all the Tayto!

no shareholders either, so they can do what they like and senior management are answerable to nobody

SimonLynch

Till jockeys? Nice. Half the shops I go into it's only because of the excellent cashiers.

Eric Cartman

razzler wrote: »

That's what the union is trying to achieve for us, banded hours contracts with a minium of 25 hours guaranteed. .

please explain to all of the staff there less than a year that they will be losing their jobs if dunnes give in to that. agreeing a minimum of 25 hours for all of you will cause job losses.

Guffy

I get what your saying Eric, but I remember the frustration I felt when I worked in Dunnes. Why are they hiring 5 new people when they are only giving us 17/18 hours? Odds are most of those people will be let go anyway so as to avoid the whole permanency thing.

efb

Divide and conquer Eric - the old cheap management tactic

Eric Cartman

gufc21 wrote: »

I get what your saying Eric, but I remember the frustration I felt when I worked in Dunnes. Why are they hiring 5 new people when they are only giving us 17/18 hours? Odds are most of those people will be let go anyway so as to avoid the whole permanency thing.

its good PR - dunnes has created x amount of irish jobs

diversification - if you can get 3 people for 15 hours for the same money as 1 person for 45 hours a week then of course you'll pick more people especially in unskilled / low skilled labour (I am not mocking the hard work dunnes employees do with this comment, but at the end of the day its very repetitive unskilled work that somebody can be trained to do very quickly)

reliability - If you have a pool of 50 people to call on to fill hours you've a higher chance than with 20, lets say theres a surge of customers on a sunday morning , when you call and ask people to go in, a lot of them are going to be hungover in bed and say no. if you have a pool of 50 chances are 5 will say yes , whereas in 20 you'd get perhaps 1-2 and you'd still be understaffed.

growth - new stores need new managers and staff , having a big pool of ready and waiting trained staff , and longer term staff suitable for management creates an environment where it's easy to expand your business very quickly .

Tugboats

@Eric Cartman is there a reason why you have over 25 posts in the thread as you don't seem to work in Dunnes from what ive read?

I only heard about the strike today and popped in here to see what the story was. As it doesn't directly involve me I don't think i could dedicate over 25posts to the thread