Perú | UNIONS | SABMILLER

    EN DIALOGO

With Nilton Flores

Unjust dismissals in

Backus - SABMiller

break off direct dealings

   

The National Trade Union of Backus & Johnston Workers faces  a new antiunion onslaught from the transnational brewery in Peru. Direct dealings with management were finally broken off after three months of fruitless negotiations and the firing of four workers. Sirel spoke with Nilton Flores, general secretary of the union, to learn about the situation of the SABMiller Peruvian subsidiary.

 

-Is the situation at SABMiller complicated?

-Yes. The company has been deploying an iron-fist antiunion policy since we started the collective bargaining process. We’re asking for parity in benefits for all workers of the transnational brewery in Peru, where it has five production plants (in Lima, Cuzco, Ate, Motupe and Arequipa).

 

Discussions on this demand began in mid March, when we started the collective bargaining process. Following three months of negotiations, in which no progress was made, by mid June all possibility of dialogue was exhausted and direct dealings were broken off.

The “Complaints, Penalties and Disciplinary Committee,” which was illegally established by the company with the sole aim of penalizing workers, violating their rights

 

-How exactly does the company harass its workers?

-It fires workers under any pretext. Either because they join the union or because they don’t pass the tests imposed by .

 

This soured relations significantly, and resulted in the breaking off of direct dealings.

 

-What measures did you take to counter the transnational corporation’s attitude?

-We first notified the Labor Ministry of the exhausting of the dialogue stage. We reported the arbitrary dismissal of four fellow workers and we began mobilizing, staging sit-ins in front of the administrative offices of Backus-SABMiller in Lima.

 

-What are the next steps?

-For the time being we’re going to wait for the Labor and Employment Promotion Ministry to call a conciliation meeting –which it will probably do next week– before we take more severe union actions.

 

We have the support of the IUF and FNT-CGTP-ABA, to pressure the company into negotiating in good faith with the union and rehiring the fired workers.

 

 

 

 

En Montevideo, Amalia Antúnez

Rel-UITA

30 de junio de 2011

 

 

 

 

 

 

Open letter from IUF Latin America to Backus – SABMiller management:

 

Regional Latinoamericana
 Unión Internacional de Trabajadores de la Alimentación,
Agrícolas, Hoteles, Restaurantes, Tabaco y Afines (Rel-UITA)
   

Comité
Ejecutivo
Latinoamericano:


Presidente
Argentino Geneiro
UTHGRA
Argentina

Vicepresidenta
Neuza Barbosa
CNTA
Brasil

Carolina Llanos
UATRE
Argentina

Héctor Ponce
ATILRA
Argentina

Silvia Villaverde
FAOPCHPYA
Argentina

Alberto Broch
CONTAG
Brasil

Siderlei de Oliveira
CONTAC
Brasil

Luis A. Pedraza
UNAC
Colombia

Guillermo Rivera
SINTRAINAGRO
Colombia

Edwin Ranchos
FESTRAS
Guatemala

Gerardo Iglesias
Secretario Regional

 

 

 

 

Montevideo, June 29, 2011

 

 

Robert Damian Priday Woodworth

Unión de Cervecerías Peruanas

Backus & Johnston S.A.A.

Lima, Peru

P e r u

 

Mr. Priday Woodworth,

 

I am writing to you on behalf of the IUF and its 391 affiliates from 124 countries to convey our concern and alarm at the labor policy that is being deployed by your subsidiary, which can be summarized as follows:

 

1.- Last March, a process of collective bargaining began with the National Trade Union of Workers of Unión de Cervecerías Peruanas Backus & Johnston S.A.A., which, after three months, culminated in the breaking off of direct dealings as a result of the intransigence of the company representatives.

 

2.- In the middle of the negotiations, your company launched an antiunion policy characterized by illegal dismissals, including the firing of three workers for joining the union.

 

3.- Workers have been fired without justification on false allegations that alcohol had been detected in their breath.

 

4.- A so-called “Complaints, Penalties and Disciplinary Committee” has been established unilaterally by the company and used to discipline workers who are members of the union and who are wrongly accused of committing some kind of misconduct. The arbitrary and illegal process begins with “Disciplinary Hearings,” a mechanism used to extract “confessions of serious misconduct” from some workers.

        

If this illegal and reprehensible form of administering justice is allowed to continue, where will it lead? To Backus & Johnston building their own prison to punish the workers it finds guilty, in a throwback to slavery times?

 

The four points listed above are enough to prove that the labor policy deployed by your company (a subsidiary of the transnational corporation SABMiller) is grossly violating both:

  • The Constitution and laws of Peru;

  • ILO Conventions 87 and 98, ratified by Peru;

  • The ILO’s “Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy”; and

  • SABMiller’s so-called “Ten Priorities,” which include a chapter on “Human Rights” that, among other things, states: “We respect and promote the values of the international community and recognize our responsibility to uphold labor standards, both in our local operations and in our supply chain. SABMiller is a signatory of the United Nations Global Compact.”

For all of the above, I exhort you to use your influence to persuade your company to negotiate in good faith with the trade union, end its antiunion discrimination practices, reinstate the unjustly dismissed workers and eliminate the illegal “Complaints, Penalties and Disciplinary Committee.”

 

Meanwhile, we will continue to denounce to the Peruvian authorities and international public opinion the arbitrary doings of Backus & Johnston/SABMiller, and we will support the trade union with all the international solidarity we can summon.

 

Sincerely yours,

 

Gerardo Iglesias

IUF Latin American Regional Secretary

 

  

cc: Labor Ministry / ILO, Lima / FNT-CGTP-ABA /SINOUCPBJSAA and IUF Geneva

 

 

  

Wilson Ferreira Aldunate 1229 Ofic. 201, Montevideo, Uruguay

Tel: (5982) 9007473 - 9021048 / Fax: 9030905  -  uita@rel-uita.org

 

 

 

  UITA - Secretaría Regional Latinoamericana - Montevideo - Uruguay

Wilson Ferreira Aldunate 1229 / 201 - Tel. (598 2) 900 7473 -  902 1048 -  Fax 903 0905