Tesco to slash night shift hours

Workers in Lurgan and Portadown have voiced concern at plans to slash night shift hours at local Tesco stores.

Staff were informed by Tesco that night shift operations in some stores will be curtailed.

One night shift worker believed that up to 50 staff across stores in Lurgan, Craigavon and Portadown may be affected.

It is understood opening hours at the Lurgan and Portadown stores may be reduced and staff who normally had been working overnight to replenish shelves either redeployed or take redundancy.

There are some changes at Lurgan but the biggest is to the opening times. Currently Lurgan trades 6am to midnight. From 7th November this will move to 7am-11pm (Sunday will remain 1pm–6pm).

Portadown will also be changing its replenishment from nights to days.

It is believed Tesco will be speaking to any affected staff and there will be support to find alternative roles, either within the store or within another local store.

However, one staff member said: “Some people have been told they will be facing redundancy.”

A Tesco spokesman: “We’re making some changes in a number of our stores to help us run them more simply and deliver the best possible service for customers. We understand this may be disruptive for some of our colleagues and where there have been changes to a colleague’s role we will be working really hard to ensure they are fully supported.”