Staff concern at 'cuts'

It comes in light of the news Tesco have been given the go ahead for a new 20million superstore in Craigavon.

A Tesco employee said the new store for Craigavon doesn’t make sense, given the cuts to hours.

The woman, who wished to remain anonymous, said she couldn’t understand why Tesco needed a new premises in Craigavon, given poor trading figures at the Rushmere store, she claimed.

Last month, following a judicial review, plans to build an 80,000 square foot Tesco Extra superstore next to B&Q were given the go ahead.

The Tesco Rushmere employee said: “They’re talking about opening a big 20million store, but cutting our hours to suit themselves. Why are they opening a new store in Craigavon when the store they have is losing money?”

She added: “They’re cutting 144 hours between check out and customer services staff. Everybody is up in arms, but nobody wants to do anything about it.

“At the end of the day they want us to take a cut in hours and whenever they open the new place they’ll want more hours."

A spokesperson from Tesco said the changes to working hours were part of a UK wide ‘Right Hours, Right Place’ initiative.

She said: “It is a policy to further improve service provided to customers by ensuring we have more staff on hand when stores are busiest. The union reps in every store across the UK are well aware of this.”