Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

For a brief moment, the value and essential nature of workers, those who are on the front line doing the work, had to be recognised in the pandemic. Chief among them, or certainly up there, were supermarket workers, who universally were accepted to be keeping our shops open and providing an essential service when most things were locked down. Even their employers were forced very briefly somewhat to recognise that, for example, with a 10% pandemic bonus from Tesco for its workers. However, as soon as they could, that was quickly forgotten. A few months later, the pandemic bonus was gone and then Tesco went on the offensive. It attempted to push through a very bad deal for workers which would scrap their Sunday premiums, convert a defined benefit pension into a defined contribution pension for new entrants and maintain a two-tier wage structure. The workers have resoundingly rejected those proposals, voting an incredible 88% “No”, and have organised on a rank-and-file basis to fight for the kind of improvements they want to see. My question to the Taoiseach is whether he believes that employers like Tesco and others should recognise the contribution of their workers by providing decent wages, terms and conditions.

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