Wednesday, June 17, 2009


INTERNATIONAL LABOUR-INDONESIA:
SOLIDARITY WITH INDONESIAN NESTLE WORKERS:
The following item is from the international union confederation, the IUF. There have been other items about Nestlé on this blog, both about labour matters and about food safety. As a worldwide corporation it is only appropriate that Nestlé poor behavior is also worldwide. In this case it is Indonesia.
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Urgent Action Nestlé Indonesia - Two Years and Nescafé Workers Still Waiting for the Right to Negotiate Wages!:
Since 2007, the union at Nestlé's Nescafé factory in Panjang, Indonesia has been struggling to negotiate two basic improvements to their contract. The union wants: wages to be negotiated through collective bargaining, and is asking for the wage scale to be included in the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Nestlé management refuses, saying it is not company policy to negotiate wages and that wage scales are "confidential"! Rather than negotiate, Nestlé has attempted to undermine the union's legitimacy by intimidating members and leaders, attempting to establish a rival organization and pressuring workers to join it.

For two years, workers and their union have been standing up to company pressure - you can support them by sending a message to Nestlé, the world's largest food company, telling it to stop pressuring and start negotiating!
http://www.iuf.org/cgi-bin/campaigns/show_campaign.cgi?c=410

The situation at Nestlé Panjang is not unique. For growing numbers of Nestlé workers around the world, it's "Good Food - Good Life - Goodbye to Union Rights in the Workplace"
To learn more about Nestlé, Nespressure and the fight back, visit
http://www.iuf.org/nespressure/en/
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THE LETTER:
Please go to the campaign site link above to send the following letter to Nestlé management.
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To: Paul Bulcke, CEO
Frits van Dijk, Executive Vice President, Zone AOA
CC: Jean-Marc Duvoisin, Senior Vice President, Human Resources
Nigel Isherwood, Assistant Vice President, Human Resources, Zone AOA
Peter Vogt, Managing Director, Nestlé Indonesia
I am outraged to learn that management at the Nescafé factory in Panjang, Indonesia, refuses to respond constructively to proposals put forth by the union SBNIP to negotiate wages and to include the wage scale in the collective agreement. These are basic trade union rights set out in ILO Conventions, which Nestlé claims to uphold as part of the Corporate Business Principles.
Rather than negotiate, management has, over the course of almost 2 years, attempted to undermine the union's legitimacy by intimidating members and leaders and by promoting a rival organisation. Rather than negotiate, management has now sought to impose a settlement through the industrial court. This is precisely the kind of behaviour which has repeatedly involved Nestlé in action at the OECD for violation of its Guidelines on Multinational Enterprises.
It's past time for Nestlé to stop fighting the union, to fully respect its right to represent Panjang employees and immediately engage in good faith collective bargaining negotiations. I will continue to watch closely for signs of progress.
Yours sincerely,

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