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Cambridge demo against 200 Tesco Drivers threatened with sack.

Cameraboy | 04.11.2012 20:27 | Social Struggles | Workers' Movements | Cambridge | World

Yesterday morning (Saturday) a small but significant demonstration took place in front of the already controversial Mill Road Tesco in Cambridge, accompanied by the strains of Billy Bragg on a portable sound system.

Small but significant...
Small but significant...

Signing up to the struggle...
Signing up to the struggle...

Shooting the video.
Shooting the video.

Something Tesco would rather not see at their stores- unions!
Something Tesco would rather not see at their stores- unions!


This was in solidarity with 200 delivery drivers who are currently working for Tesco, but who have had their contracts transferred to the Eddie Stobart haulage firm, who then summarily issued all these drivers with 90 days' notice, meaning their jobs are due to terminate just before Christmas - a nice present for their families, in the 'best' of Scrooge spirit!!

This has been called by some a blatant union busting operation, as not only will the drivers be offered new contracts with Eddie Stobart on a much lower payscale, but their pensions will be repealed and there will be no union representation.

This scandalous state of affairs occurs just months after it came to light that Tesco also support the DWP's so-called 'Workfare' scheme, in which long term unemployed are forced to work full time hours for Tesco (and other companies) for their Giros, under the threat of all their benefits being cut if they refuse.

So, it would seem that 'every little helps' Tesco to maintain their bottom line at the expense of their employee's pay and conditions, as well as pushing working conditions back to the times of Feudal Indentured Labour!

Not that I ever shopped there anyway.

Video of Cambridge demo here:
 http://youtu.be/dQ6QkdiKLIA

...And more details here:
 http://youtu.be/VJeilc58GiM

Thanks due to Ozzy for additional research materials for this article.

Other recommended reading:
 http://www.tescopoly.org/

Cameraboy


Comments

Hide the following 3 comments

Great work

05.11.2012 15:57

Keep it up

Mark


Wich would you prefer?

06.11.2012 12:06

If they get the sack, they get redundancy pay. Then they apply for the jobs a Stowbart's.
If they just fill in the forms dutifully and move on to stowbart's they don't get redundancy pay.

anon


Monopoly

06.11.2012 20:33

Monopolies can't exist for long without the state. And the reason for that is a clever little mechanism call greed. As soon as anyone gets anywhere near a monopoly, they get greedy. And that's an opportunity for others to start up in competition and break the monopoly. The only way that a monopoly can persist is with state protectionism, preferential planning permissions, etc.

Tesco will never get the monopoly they seek, without the help of the law.

anarchist


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