argos strike?

Lucifer

hi all,

dont know if this is the right place but does anyone know for sure what argos stores are on strike tomorrow or if they definitly are on strike? i have a reservation which expires tomorrow so where would i stand with it if the store is not open tomorrow?
by the way this reservation is for the pink nintendo ds lite...gold dust...i have to get this one!!

any help please....thanks so much all

JohnC.

I saw ads in papers today saying it is on. But I suppose something could have happened during the day.

favouritemistak

Hey there, I work in argos, and as far as we know we are still going ahead with the strike tomorrow.
If you'd prefer not to pass the picket, what you could do is ring argos to extend your reservation. Or your reservatin will cancel when the store closes, you could ring then and re reserve the item. I understand they are like gold dust, but it'd be great to have your support.
and sure...we'll get more in before xmas...I'll even check it for ya.:)

bobcar61

As far as I know the strike is still going ahead but the last post confirmed that for you.
I work in Homebase and as Homebase and Argos are the same company we were saying that we should go on strike too.It wont be happening though for us.

mikemac

What's the reason for the strike?
I haven't read about it and I'm interested to know.

Is it an offical mandated strike?

bobcar61

They want an extra €1 per hour of pay

Seems like a petit reason to go on strike for though

favouritemistak

Hey there again,
yep, we are most defo on strike apparently. Argos usually does yearly pay reviews and in 2006 they wanted out of that to go nto the national pay agreement. We wanted 10percent over 12 months..the national pay agrement is 10% over 27months. It all started way back in 2006...it went to the labour court...and now its come to a strike. The national pay agreement doesn't really benefit us at all.
We're just looking for a fair wage...we work hard and think that argos can afford it. They are a very profitable company, and they should respect their staff enough to look afte them. When you consider the cost of living here and the rate of inflation , the basic wage in argos is pathetic.
I just heard that argos have flown in staff from england to work in the cork stores.
I hope that people support us in this strike and don't pass the picket!

cazzy

I was just going to ask you whats the use passing the picket if all the staff are outside ( re your earlier post) but you have answered it with your reply on flying over staff from england.
Never though of that - thats sneeky by argos.
I'd say there could be trouble if they do that - friends of the picketers going into the store causing problems for the english staff. Wouldnt want to be them.
Whats the starting wage in argos at the moment per hour ?

Lucifer

so are all argos stores closed tomorrow? sorry i really REALLY need this ds

favouritemistak

yep, all stores are open, but there will be pickets placed on all stores.
To be honest, I reckon some of the irish staff will go in too...just because no one can afford to lose the days pay. And alot of the temporary staff that were hired for xmas won't have a choice...if they're not in the union! And to be fair to them, they are thinking of their jobs after xmas too I'm sure. I imagine they are all a little scared of not going in because they want a chance to keep a job and at the same time, their contracts end on december 25th so they prob don't feel this is their fight to fight.
the current starting rate is 907. This does include pay rises from the national pay agreement which argos issued until the pay thing is resolved..so by asking for a euro extra we won't be goig to 10.07 but rather they will deduct the percentage they already gave when they started paying us in line with the national pay agreement despite staff saying no to the national pay agreement! I think they've paid about 6percent or something..although I can't really remember now. Its been going on since 2006 so its a shame we have to strike really. Am actually nervous about it all now.

Carroller16

ha 9.07 seems like a fortune... everywhere i've worked in the last year or so while studying was 8.65

Tony H

Carroller16 wrote: »

ha 9.07 seems like a fortune... everywhere i've worked in the last year or so while studying was 8.65

Yes that might seem a fortune to you as a student but this is a permanent job for a lot of people and an extra €1 an hour would make a big difference to them, I could never pass a picket line but as this is a free society this is up to an individual whether or not to pass an official picket .

bmaxi

Why don't you just award yourselves the pay rise and not bother to consult your employers, or have a panel of lackeys propose it for you? Not an unknown concept in Ireland.

copacetic

saw the pickets in dundrum this morning, a lot of people seemed to be ignoring them and there looked to be plenty of staff in the shop and not management type staff either.

Pacifico

Did this happen? http://breakingnews.ie/ireland/mhmhidqlqlgb/

eth0_

I'd imagine there are very few people working in Argos as a long term job. 9 euro an hour to sit on a til, or grab orders off a conveyor belt sounds about right to me.

I think the staff are just giving Argos more reason to speed up their introduction of self service tils to Ireland :-/

January

Most Irish companies work on the national pay agreement, it may not be fair but it sucks. Get over it.

I had to cross the picket line today because today is my only day off and I had to buy a Christmas tree. I apologized to the staff though.

Wishbone Ash

adrieanne__x wrote: »

today is my only day off and I had to buy a Christmas tree

Is Argos the only place that sells Christmas trees? :eek:

fastrac

Its sad to see what Irish people endured and now we pass pickets to buy our Christmas baubles.Argos workers wont be going buying too far in advance on 9 euro/hr.Enjoy your tree?

Gran Hermano

Wishbone Ash wrote: »

Is Argos the only place that sells Christmas trees? :eek:

Is Argos the only place to work? If I was in a job and not happy with the
renumeration I'd simply seek employment elsewhere. It's not like the workers
have a non-transferable skill-set; a till is a till regardless of store/employer.

gazzer

I had planned to go into Argos today to get a few electrical things but there is no way I would pass a picket. Plenty of other shops sell the things I was looking for. I support them fully Paying your full time staff 9 euro an hour when you made millions of pounds profit last year is disgraceful.

Nightwish

I worked in Argos for 7 years and I know first hand how sneaky they are. I wasnt at all surprised that they flew in workers from the UK to man the cork store. When I was there, it used to make me sick when we got the internal magazine with "Record profits for Argos this year" on the front, yet increments were being held back, and people let go, and hours being cut. I went down to the store today, to show my support for my old colleagues.

Bluetonic

Nightwish wrote: »

I worked in Argos for 7 years and I know first hand how sneaky they are. I wasnt at all surprised that they flew in workers from the UK to man the cork store. When I was there, it used to make me sick when we got the internal magazine with "Record profits for Argos this year" on the front, yet increments were being held back, and people let go, and hours being cut. I went down to the store today, to show my support for my old colleagues.

Why did you stay there for 7 years if they were as bad as you claim?

mikemac

Nightwish wrote: »

I worked in Argos for 7 years and I know first hand how sneaky they are. I wasnt at all surprised that they flew in workers from the UK to man the cork store. When I was there, it used to make me sick when we got the internal magazine with "Record profits for Argos this year" on the front, yet increments were being held back, and people let go, and hours being cut. I went down to the store today, to show my support for my old colleagues.

After seven years and high turnover of staff you should be a manager by that stage
Why stay on the shop floor for seven years?

And yip, I'd have no problems passing a picket.

eth0_

gazzer wrote: »

Paying your full time staff 9 euro an hour when you made millions of pounds profit last year is disgraceful.

Where is it written that profitable companies should share their profits by awarding their employees a pay rise?

It's not fair but Argos in my mind aren't doing anything wrong, they're paying more than minimum wage for a non-skilled job.

DonJose

micmclo wrote: »

After seven years and high turnover of staff you should be a manager by that stage
Why stay on the shop floor for seven years?

And yip, I'd have no problems passing a picket.

Same here I'd have no problems passing a picket, especially given the fact that Argos are following the terms of the National Wage Agreement which has been ratified by both the LRC and the Labour Court.

What do other retailers pay per hours, if the Argos hourly wage is so low simply look elsewhere for a better paying job, isn't that what the rest of us do.

jahalpin

I was in Jervis Street today and saw the picket outside the branch there, I was going to go in, but the store looked too busy to bother.

Do the unions not realise that they are in fact damaging the long term viability of the company in Ireland by telling people not to go in because their employers are tight b*****ds, when they go back to work tommorrow, people will remember what happened today and will shop elsewhere.

The company is not required by law to neotiate with a union and this is just Mandate showing the company that they will be listened to, regrdless of the security of their members jobs

TheDoc

i have worked in argos for 2 years. I understand how frustrating it is for the long time serving staff there, their pay packets are a laughing stock.

But the vast majority of our store are young school goers or college students. And argos has the most competitive rate.

I had a bust up with management and wanted to leave, but nowhere could match my pay packet.

I'm not in the union and was in work today, and if i didnt show i would have gotten in trouble so...it was a hard tough choice but was only one winner.

WE did have staff come in from England to help us out.

I think what people need to understand, and our union members are very ignorant to this fact. Argos has its own wage rise scheme. The labour court is there for a reason.... mandates claim for a pay rise was rejected.

Argos is a VERY low skilled job imo. Within 7 months of me being in the company id being given two promotions to the highest position of non management staff and had won out over some staff who had being working in argos over 10 years! Pay for long term staff are poor, but the vast majority of our staff are part time evening weekend workers or temp staff, and for such a low skilled job, i can easily see why they get poor pay.

Strikes are meant to exert pressure on the business to force their hand in matters, today, in our store, we ran smooth and had a profitable day, and most people did not take note of the picket lane, which i have to say i felt for them.

But santa doesnt go on strike and people need things this time of year.

I was very offended though this morning by the actions of union reps. I was going into work and i stopped and apologised to the staff there on the picket line, but they understood my situation. But there was a rep from the union there who got VERY lippy with me very quickly, and with other members of staff. Did not appreciate his tone at all, very ignorant to other peoples situations.

My bils wont say sorry heres an extension cause you were on strike : /

And when i left after my shift ( for argos workers Ed deliveries where today, 12 big cardboard boxes of jewellry) i was confronted by PART-TIME staff who had joined the picket later in the evening. When i asked the two girls what they were striking for they replied" ugh duh more money" And then I replied " you do know that this place has the best wage in the whole centre, or the area for that matter for the amount of hours you work, this strike is for full time staff who get **** money, so stop shouting and insulting me you ( slanderous language) and get a ****ing clue"

Clearly ive lost the favor of two colleagues :P

You can make a good career out of argos, there is good opportunities to go into management and above store level. But these people really want more money for sitting on their behind all day. The people pickiting in my store today, are the most inefficent, ignorant, rude and ill mannered people in the store,hypocrites and two faced. One of them even felt that this strike and the union also stood for the defence of irish workers being put out of jobs by foreigners and how hard it is for young irish people to get jobs because of foreigners.

The top and I mean top workers ive met in argos ( ive visited 3 stores and helped work in 4) are all foreigners. If I had to name the top 5 workers in my store, 3 of them are foreign.

For the record coming from an argos employee, who DID work full time for a period of 7 months at one stage, am very happy with my current wages ( even after getting cut €1.10 last week ) and I feel I was rewarded with pay increases and promotions for the hard work i put in.

DonJose

Fair play to you, hopefully the ICTU will get involved the teach those clueless idiots the reasons why shouldn't undermine the National Wage Agreement.

"But IBEC has claimed that any pay hike would be in breach of the social partnership agreement, and it is urging the Irish Congress of Trade Unions to get involved."
http://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/mhmhididkfql/

ambman

[DM]-TheDOC- wrote: »

i have worked in argos for 2 years. I understand how frustrating it is for the long time serving staff there, their pay packets are a laughing stock.

But the vast majority of our store are young school goers or college students. And argos has the most competitive rate.

I had a bust up with management and wanted to leave, but nowhere could match my pay packet.

I'm not in the union and was in work today, and if i didnt show i would have gotten in trouble so...it was a hard tough choice but was only one winner.

WE did have staff come in from England to help us out.

I think what people need to understand, and our union members are very ignorant to this fact. Argos has its own wage rise scheme. The labour court is there for a reason.... mandates claim for a pay rise was rejected.

Argos is a VERY low skilled job imo. Within 7 months of me being in the company id being given two promotions to the highest position of non management staff and had won out over some staff who had being working in argos over 10 years! Pay for long term staff are poor, but the vast majority of our staff are part time evening weekend workers or temp staff, and for such a low skilled job, i can easily see why they get poor pay.

Strikes are meant to exert pressure on the business to force their hand in matters, today, in our store, we ran smooth and had a profitable day, and most people did not take note of the picket lane, which i have to say i felt for them.

But santa doesnt go on strike and people need things this time of year.

I was very offended though this morning by the actions of union reps. I was going into work and i stopped and apologised to the staff there on the picket line, but they understood my situation. But there was a rep from the union there who got VERY lippy with me very quickly, and with other members of staff. Did not appreciate his tone at all, very ignorant to other peoples situations.

My bils wont say sorry heres an extension cause you were on strike : /

And when i left after my shift ( for argos workers Ed deliveries where today, 12 big cardboard boxes of jewellry) i was confronted by PART-TIME staff who had joined the picket later in the evening. When i asked the two girls what they were striking for they replied" ugh duh more money" And then I replied " you do know that this place has the best wage in the whole centre, or the area for that matter for the amount of hours you work, this strike is for full time staff who get **** money, so stop shouting and insulting me you ( slanderous language) and get a ****ing clue"

Clearly ive lost the favor of two colleagues :P

You can make a good career out of argos, there is good opportunities to go into management and above store level. But these people really want more money for sitting on their behind all day. The people pickiting in my store today, are the most inefficent, ignorant, rude and ill mannered people in the store,hypocrites and two faced. One of them even felt that this strike and the union also stood for the defence of irish workers being put out of jobs by foreigners and how hard it is for young irish people to get jobs because of foreigners.

The top and I mean top workers ive met in argos ( ive visited 3 stores and helped work in 4) are all foreigners. If I had to name the top 5 workers in my store, 3 of them are foreign.

For the record coming from an argos employee, who DID work full time for a period of 7 months at one stage, am very happy with my current wages ( even after getting cut €1.10 last week ) and I feel I was rewarded with pay increases and promotions for the hard work i put in.

BROWN NOSER.

AND PEOPLE WHO PASS PICKETS TO GO TO WORK IN FRONT OF THERE WORK MATES ARE SCAB'S

luckat

I'm sickened to hear that people would pass pickets put by working people to get an increase on a miserable wage. Perhaps your day will come, matey, and you'll see it from the other side.