Management at Dunnes Stores are attempting to intimidate staff planning industrial action next week, according to their trade union Mandate.

The union has written to its 6,000 members in the company urging them to ignore “lies and misinformation” in the lead up to a planned stoppage across the 109 outlets next Thursday.

Pickets are to be placed outside all Dunnes branches on Holy Thursday, a day chosen for maximum impact as it falls before Good Friday - when alcohol cannot be sold - and so traditionally a day associated with large volumes of alcohol sales.

The dispute centres on the company’s alleged widespread use of low-hour contracts, on pay and the alleged refusal by the company to negotiate with the union on grievances under the terms of an agreement reached in 1996 .

In a letter sent to Dunnes Stores members, Mandate divisional organiser Karen Wall says as a former Dunnes worker herself she remembers the “intense pressure by management” during similar disputes in the 1990s. The experience for workers is “challenging and difficult”.

She says “key people” and “vulnerable” members are currently being called into “communication meetings” by management.

“Clear propaganda, misinformation and untruths have been spun by the company, all in an effort to break your dispute.”

Never meet the union

She says the company is making a number of claims including that it will “never meet” the union, that some stores are “crumbling” and will not have pickets, that the company is planning on introducing full-time contracts, and, that only a minority of Dunnes workers are members of Mandate.

Ms Wall says in fact Dunnes management have met with Mandate in the past and “freely signed up to a procedural agreement in 1996 that they are now ignoring” and that they attended the Labour Court in the past to resolve issues.

She says: “No store has pulled out of the strike and your union intends to picket all 109 Dunnes Stores on Thursday 2nd April.”

On the question of whether there will be full-time contracts in the future, she says: “Dunnes has given no formal commitments that workers will achieve full-time contracts of employment and even if a number are offered this will only be for a select few as determined by management.”

Some 67 per cent of Dunnes Stores’s 9,000 employees are members of Mandate, she says.

“Do not underestimate how important you are as a worker.

“Workers are a company’s best and most valuable asset...Now is the time to believe in yourself and trust your instincts...You deserve better jobs, decent hours, guaranteed earnings and respect...We did it before in 1996 and we can do it again.”

Dunnes Stores did not comment on the contents of the letter last night.