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Tesco denies 'cash to break strike'
Page 6
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A Scottish newspaper had claimed that the supermarket offered Eddie
Stobart drivers payments to break picket lines. Dylan Gray reports.
THE TRANSPORT & General Workers Union (T&G) section of Unite has hit out at Tesco after claims in the Edinburgh Evening News that Eddie Stobart drivers were offered a £500 bonus to work out of the Livingstone depot during the Tesco driver's strike.
The strike is scheduled to run from today until Saturday (2426 May), hitting bank holiday weekend deliveries to more than 100 Tesco stores throughout Scotland.
The Edinburgh Evening News claimed Stobart drivers were offered the cash and free accommodation at a luxury hotel — but they turned it down in support of their fellow drivers. T&G national secretary Ron Webb says: "This was an attempt to break a lawful and wholly justifiable strike with grubby money and bully-boy tactics."
However, Tesco refutes the claims as "absolute rubbish" and alleges that the strike is more about the union thanTesco:"From the originally balloted drivers, only 60 are actually going to strike. Also, two from the three T&G representatives at the depot have stepped down. It seems the issue is about the union,not Tesco."
A T&G spokesman responds: "We aren't aware of that, but NV know the strike will go ahead as planned, supported by the union."
T&G members nationwide are now calling for a national strike ballot among drivers at the supermarket's other UK distribution depots.
The strike was sparked by proposed contract changes following the move to a new depot 500m from the existing site and derecognition of the union (CM 17 May). The T&G says drivers would lose more than £3,000 a year; Tesco denies this, saying it is only changing the way it pays its staff, not the amount.