The leaders of Ireland’s main political parties have publicly backed the Dunnes Stores workers in their dispute with the company.

Workers will tomorrow strike, picketing outside stores over the use of low-hour contracts, job security and fair pay.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny today said he supports “the Dunnes workers in having a right to clarity insofar as their working lives and their working weeks are concerned.”

He went on to say he “would hope that this strike would not have to go ahead.”

The dispute centres around four issues: secure hours and earnings; job security; fair pay and the right to trade union representation. Workers have said their hours are currently too unpredictable and make it impossible to predict their earnings.

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD this morning expressed Sinn Féin’s “firm and unequivocal support for the Dunnes Stores workers who will be on strike tomorrow.”

“The intransigent attitude of the management at Dunnes Stores is at the root of tomorrows strike. Dunnes workers have been left with no option but to engage in industrial action in an effort to secure fair pay and secure hours,” Mr Adams said.

In the Dáil today Fianna Fáil leader Micheal Martin said the use of low-hour contracts was “like going back to the 19th century.”