Tesco forces its staff to wear electronic armbands which it uses to monitor them, a former worker has claimed.
The chain collects information from the devices to grade employees in efficiency and can use it to reprimand them for taking breaks, it is alleged.
The supermarket giant admits to using the devices, which they say are in use across the industry, but denies that they are used to monitor their staff.
The former employee has told the Irish Independent that staff are given marks based on how efficiently they work, and can be hauled in front of bosses if they take unscheduled toilet breaks.
In a bid to improve productivity the armbands are given to warehouse staff and forklift drivers who use them to scan the stock and send it out for delivery.
The chain say that they are a labour saving device, which means that the staff do now have to carry around pens and paper.
[Fucking puleeze cut the insulting bullshit!] 
But the whistleblower paints a different of the armbands, claiming that they are also being used to spy on work rates.
They explained the armband provided a set time in which to collect an order from a warehouse.
If workers met that target they were given a 100 per cent score, which would rise to 200 per cent if they worked twice as quickly.
The grade would fall if they did not meet the target, and if they do not register a toilet break their score would plummet, according to the worker who was employed in an Irish branch of the store.
If it was judged that they were not working hard enough people would be called before management, he alleged.
“The guys who made the scores were sweating buckets and throwing stuff around the place," he said.
The armbands, it is said, put staff under huge pressure. Tesco in Ireland told the Irish Independent that a "break" function could be used to register genuine stoppages. Around 25 minutes a day had been allowed for these, and any other time would be monitored, it was said.
A Tesco spokesman said: “This technology is used widely throughout the industry as a working aid and at no time is it used to monitor colleagues while on their breaks.
"The devices make it easier for our colleagues to carry out their role as they don’t need to carry paperwork around the distribution centre.”
Employment law expert Peter Daly, a solicitor at Bindmans LLP, said firms has a lot of leeway and there is nothing stopping firms monitoring staff, but they risked action if employees felt they were being discriminated against.
Torygraph
