TRADE unionists staged a demonstration outside a town's supermarket on Saturday to protest against weekend working.

Members of GMB picketed Asda supermarket, in Thornaby, to protest changes to the working rotas.

A GMB spokesman said: "A meeting of GMB union members employed at the Thornaby store was told that Asda Wal-Mart management was insisting that staff will have to work three weekends out of four in the future.

"Many staff currently working in the store are women who have taken a job in the first place because it is advertised as weekday working, and their family responsibilities mean that they are not able to work weekends."

But Asda bosses deny these claims. They said that staff have been asked to work weekends, but not three out of four.

They said the situation was currently under consultation.

A spokesman said: "We have said to colleagues we need people to work weekends because it is our busiest time.

"About 40 staff are involved in a consultation period to ask them what their availability is. The idea is to approach everyone so that everyone can be allocated weekend work and it's not the same people working all the time so we can get that balance."