Multi-billion pound retailer Tesco, photo Suzanne Beishon

Multi-billion pound retailer Tesco, photo Suzanne Beishon   (Click to enlarge: opens in new window)

Tesco slashes pay for thousands of workers

Scott Jones, Chair, Usdaw east London retail branch (personal capacity)

Thousands of workers at Tesco, the UK’s largest private sector employer, could lose hundreds of pounds in pay.

Details of a new pay deal, long overdue, have been leaked revealing many of the 310,000 workers will have overtime, weekend and night-shift bonuses cut as part of new contracts that could be introduced as early as this week.

Staff who receive double time for working Sundays and bank holidays will have their pay slashed to time-and-a-half. Premiums currently available for those working between 10pm and 6am will now only be available between midnight and 6am.

Overtime

And overtime previously paid at time-and-a-half or double time will now be at the normal single rate, which will affect the majority of Tesco workers who are on part-time contracts and low pay and who rely on overtime to pay the bills.

The government already subsidises big business £11 billion a year to top up the wages of 5.2 million low-paid workers – including many supermarket workers – in the form of tax credits and other benefits.

Meanwhile Tesco CEO Dave Lewis received £4.1 million in his first six months as boss in 2015. As one Tesco worker said this week: “I’d rather have a living wage than support the lifestyles of shareholders.”

Shop workers’ union Usdaw, a third of whose members are in Tesco and who are committed to fighting for a living wage, have been characteristically quiet and lacking in fight over the issue.

A vote on pay deals should be restored to Tesco workers and industrial action discussed by the union so that the strength of the 160,000 Usdaw members in Tesco is used to fight against low pay and attacks on conditions.