Supermarket Tesco have confirmed their intention to reduce pay and conditions for some of their staff from Monday, 18 April.
RTE have reported that 1,000 of Tesco's 14,000 workers will be affected by the change in the employee contracts as SIPTU workers hold a secret ballot for industrial action.
Mandate trade union, who represent a large portion of the workers, have called the contracts "inferior" and that they will resist any attempt by Tesco to enforce unilateral changes.
Tesco are seeking to implement these changed because up to 1,000 of their workers currently hold pre-1996 contracts which allow for higher rates of pay than those recruited after 1996.
Tesco have stated that they want to streamline their pay grades and sick pay arrangements for its staff both pre and post the 1996 contracts and that the pre-1996 contracts are not flexible enough for the longer opening hours and changed trading patterns.
Mandate and SIPTU have said that workers will lose out because of lower pay provision in the post-1996 contracts.
If an agreement on the contracts is reached, Tesco is expected to offer a redundancy package of five weeks pay per year of service to any staff who may wish to leave.
Results on a SIPTU ballot are expected to be in on Saturday.
