Tesco job ads follow non-union line

By Jonathan Birchall

Tesco, the world’s third largest grocer, has listed "maintaining union-free status" and "union avoidance activities" among the responsibilities of senior managers of its planned new network of stores on the US west coast.

Language in two job descriptions indicates that Tesco - which has a close partnership with its UK union - is set to follow the non-union example of Wal-Mart, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s and others in the US, adding to the pressure on the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) in southern California.

An advert for a new employee relations director, said "the incumbent has primary responsibility for management of employee relations; maintaining non-union status and union avoidance activities".

Tesco, which has ambitious plans for stores in LA and in Phoenix, claimed it had not yet reached a decision on the likely union status of its planned US operations.

On Friday, after being questioned by the FT, it removed the non-union language from the two job ads - which were first published last month and published again this week.

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The retailer is believed by analysts to be planning a range of smaller 10-12,000 sq ft stores that will sell a range of fresh foods and prepared meals.

In southern California, Tesco is entering one of the most bitterly contested labour relations battlefields in the US. Two years ago, the area witnessed a four-month supermarket strike, as the UFCW tried to fight moves to cut benefits by Kroger, Albertson’s and Safeway.

The UFCW’s Local 770 is campaigning aggressively against the expansion of Wal-Mart’s Supercenters in the Los Angeles area.

Nelson Lichtenstein, a labour history professor at the University of California, said that Tesco’s small format stores could represent an "under the radar threat" to the UFCW.

In the UK, Tesco has operated a partnership with the USDAW retail workers union since 1998, and has more than 100,000 union members among its staff. It has also adopted a human rights policy that includes "the right of our staff to join a recognised trade union".

"Union avoidance" has become part of the job specifications of numerous US non-union employers, and would require an awareness of how to combat a union organising campaign without breaking the law.

J Sainsbury, Tesco’s UK rival, had acrimonious dealings with the union during its ownership of the Shaw’s chain, before selling the stores in 2004.

H&M, the Swedish fashion retailer, granted union recognition to warehouse workers in New Jersey and Connecticut in 2004, after an international campaign by the Unite Here union that targeted its Swedish shareholders.

Bruce Raynor, general president of Unite Here, said that the H&M campaign had been based on the principle that European companies should apply the same standards to their North American workers as they did at home. "My prediction is that the UFCW would contest any decision by Tesco to act differently in the US," he said.

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