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The Nestlé Principle:
To grow is to outsource |
A Nestlé
factory in the Dominican Republic had an 80
percent growth in production and rewarded its
workforce by laying off 45 regular workers to
replace them with outsourced (subcontracted)
labor
Nothing seems to get in the way of the unchecked
voracity and arrogance of this Swiss
transnational corporation. The workers
represented by the Helados Nestlé Dominicana
Workers Union have practically exhausted all
means of making the company comply with the
terms of the collective bargaining agreement and
with the country’s applicable laws.
Faced with this situation, last Friday the 12th
these workers convened a demonstration in front
of the factory’s facilities, located on
Manoguayabo road (Santo Domingo), to protest the
wave of layoffs, which are aimed at replacing
the fired workers with subcontracted hands. With
this measure -by no means original- the company
intends to reduce the number of workers it is
responsible for. And as the new operators cannot
be represented by the Union, the collective
bargaining agreement does not apply to them, and
subcontractors are free to pay them starvation
wages, force them to work overtime without pay,
and avoid paying them any social security
benefits.
In the face of this labor policy deployed by a
company that cynically boasts of the “company’s
social responsibility” in its institutional
propaganda, the Union affected is gathering
today, Tuesday the 16th, with the
other two unions that represent Nestlé workers
in the country and the Food Workers Federation,
with the aim of devising a strategy plan to
fight against the company’s policy, towards
reinstating the fired workers and putting an end
to arbitrary layoffs.
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From
Montevideo,
Enildo Iglesias
©
Rel-UITA
January 17, 2007 |
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