News

All the drivers involved in the strikes at Tesco's Livingstone depot have signed the supermarket giant's contracts, but the Transport & General Workers division of Unite is still fighting for recognition at the site. The drivers held a strike over the second May bank holiday weekend over pay and conditions, as well as the derecognition of the union.

A T&G spokesman tells CM that Tesco has taken the decision to have just one union recognition agreement - with the Union of Shop,  Distributive and Allied Workers (Usdaw). "The majority of Usdaw members are in retail and some are in warehousing, but generally they are not drivers. We have the expertise about the issues facing drivers and therefore feel it is important that our members are represented by the T&G."

The spokesman adds: "Our members have chosen fairly to join the T&G and there is a recognition agreement in place between Tesco and T&G. We feel Tesco should honour that agreement because we have several thousand members working for the company." A meeting between T&G and Tesco took place last week in an attempt to resolve the problem.

But a Tesco spokesman says that no agreement has been reached because the supermarket giant is not going to change its position. "We will only deal with one union, Usdaw - which has 130,000 members within Tesco. There are only about 2,000 T&G members. These staff are able to remain as T&G members and we will discuss any personal and individual  problems with the T&G, but on collective issues we will be working with Usdaw."