Amidst the tragedy caused by Hurricane Noel, Nestlé arbitrarily fired eleven workers from its ice cream plant. This measure, which breaches the collective agreement currently in force, is further aggravated by new events that reveal unmistakably antiunion practices.

Last Friday, December 7, a new meeting was held between management and representatives of the three Nestlé unions in the Dominican Republic. The purpose of the meeting was to examine the situation arising from the eleven layoffs. Representing the transnational corporation was the manager of the ice cream factory, Peter Flowr, plant manager Walter Brawchle, human resource director Ana Isabel; and Toni Cánovas, human resource director for the Caribbean region. Attending in representation of the unions were: Ramón Durán, San Francisco de Macorís Union; Ramón Castillo, San Cristóbal Union; and Sergido Castillo and Bernabel Matos, on behalf of Rel-UITA, in addition to the entire governing committee of the ice cream plant’s Union.

We should begin by noting that Nestlé participated with its highest officers, which would appear to be an indication that the company is taking the situation seriously. However, with the same honesty we must also point out that the company has for some time been exhibiting a despotic and arrogant attitude in dealing with labor relations in this plant, and there are no signs that this has changed at all.

The situation in the Nestlé ice cream plant no longer surprises anyone, neither those directly involved nor outsiders. For years the transnational corporation has been implementing a policy geared towards clearing out its ice cream plant, and as a result dozens of workers have been arbitrarily dismissed. These actions have given rise to legitimate protests, and Nestlé justifies itself by arguing over and over again that there is “a communication problem.” As we will see below, for the company the term “communication” can take on a very vague meaning.

Nestlé and its view of globalization

For some time now, Nestlé management has been insisting on the need to improve its communication with the personnel. The company’s CEO, Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, announced this objective in the framework of the 2003 World Economic Forum, which for the first time ever in its 31 years moved from Davos (Switzerland) to the city of New York. There, Brabeck said: “We’re not good at communicating the success stories of globalization. You have to begin by convincing your own people. For example, if I can turn every one of the 255 thousand Nestlé employees in ambassadors of globalization, that would be a huge step forward.” Interviewed by América Economía, he added that: “…the truly important issue is how many people have been able to overcome extreme poverty and participate in modern society, how many people have gone up the income ladder from the 1 dollar a day rung to the 10 dollar a day rung.”

While Brabeck-Letmathe was making these statements, the Union of Nestlé Workers in El Salvador was negotiating a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. The wage increase proposed by the company to convince “its people” of the advantages of globalization was a raise of three cents of a dollar per hour. This way a worker would have to work 33 hours to make one dollar and 330 to make 10 dollars. For Nestlé workers in El Salvador, moving up from the “1 dollar a day rung to the 10 dollars a day rung” entailed approximately 41 workdays.

With this proposal, no matter what an excellent job it did of communicating it, Nestlé could hardly succeed in persuading the personnel at the Ilopango plant. And workers would be even less likely to be persuaded when they showed up for work on the morning of April 28, 2003 and found the factory shut down with no prior warning. Nearly 100 workers were left out on the street. Is this how the company intended to win them over? As gauchos say in Uruguay: “Harder than shutting a pig up with blows.” Not only did some of these workers not turn into ambassadors of globalization, but also, like many other Salvadorians, they migrated to the United States and became immigrant pariahs, classified as “illegal.”

To the sharks

In the Dominican Republic, an incident occurred at the San Francisco de Macorís plant, which is illustrative of Nestlé’s communication policy. In 2003, upon a visit by a group of Swiss technical specialists (the enigmatic Target Setting Team) who were coming to evaluate the factory’s operations, management issued a communication dated October 30, which ended by saying: "working together as a united and committed team we will succeed in steering this boat, which we are ALL in, to safe port, without capsizing along the way.” Poetic, isn’t it? The success, the boat, the sea, ALL of us…, beautiful images. What the communication did not say was that some days before the company had thrown eleven unjustly fired workers overboard. Pirate doings!

Local, global… It’s all the same!

At the end of the Thirteenth Regional Latin American Conference of the IUF (Santo Domingo, October 2-6, 2006), a delegation of our international federation had a chance to interview Peter Brabeck-Letmahe, who happened to be visiting the Dominican Republic. At that interview, we brought up the layoffs at the ice cream plant and the breaching of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Brabeck, addressing local management, declared that they must look into the situation, as “that could not be tolerated.”

In mid January, that is three months after that meeting, another 45 workers were fired. The objective: to replace the laid off workers with outsourced labor. These new employees have no union representation and are not covered by the Collective Agreement, thus enabling subcontractors to pay them lower wages, force them to work overtime without pay and deny them their social security benefits.

Apparently the strategy to convince Nestlé workers worldwide of the benefits of globalization consists of reducing their numbers.

Brabeck-Letmathe

Playing Solitaire

A few weeks ago Nestlé’s CEO had a new opportunity to improve communication with the company’s employees. On November 15 and 16, the International Labor Organization (ILO) celebrated the 30^th Anniversary of the “Tripartite Declaration of Principles concerning Multinational Enterprises and Social Policy” in Geneva, with a multi-forum that brought together business, labor and civil society leaders. As speaker for the opening panel, entitled “Effective practices in implementing labor principles,” the ILO invited Peter Brabeck-Letmathe. Brabeck chose to speak alone, vetoing the participation of the IUF, despite the fact that our federation represents the vast majority of Nestlé workers worldwide.

As our General Secretary, Ron Oswald, rightly put it his open letter to Peter Brabeck-Letmathe, this episode constituted “a disappointing and arrogant act on the part of your company, in line with Nestlé’s ongoing refusal to acknowledge the IUF outside European borders. (…) If the panel’s subject dealt with best practices, it is truly disgraceful that Nestlé should decide to speak primarily about Europe, a region where best practices are established by legislation and where the strong unions that exist in most Nestlé work places would stand for nothing less than that. There are more serious challenges regarding the company’s ethics in other parts of the world,” Ron declared in his letter.

In that universe of 255 thousand employees that Brabeck wants to convince, not everyone is in equal standing, and as was evident in San Francisco de Macorís, not everyone has a place in Nestlé’s “ark.” In Nestlé’s world, those who work in Europe are members of a debatable first class of employees and are entitled to be in the picture. The rest are specimens worthy of National Geographic.

Nestlé’s antiunion ice cream

Mimicking Peter Brabeck, management at the Dominican Republic Nestlé ice cream plant repeatedly argues that the problem stems from a lack of communication between the union and the company. This is what happened at the meeting last Wednesday 7, which began with the corporate representatives talking about the need to improve communication. But, seeing that management and the union meet regularly once a month, what explanation can the company have for not notifying the union that it was adopting such major measures? What justification is there for management calling the union to a meeting, stressing the need to have all union leaders present, while simultaneously in another office the Manager of Human Resources is handing the laid off workers their severance pay? Regardless of the form of communication, nothing can disguise such blatant ploys.

While these events were unfolding, the worker Cristina de la Cruz presented a letter renouncing her union membership. This may seem like a totally routine act, if it weren’t for the fact that the letter was written on Nestlé Dominicana S.A. letterhead. With their ears cocked to the voice of their master, like the famous RCA Victor dog but less discerningly, local Nestlé directors decided to “communicate” their version of the events: the company’s secretary had written the letter for Cristina de la Cruz without realizing she was doing it on company letterhead. We can imagine Vevey’s reprimand: some communications are best left unsaid.

These events refute the intentions that Brabeck-Letmathe so proudly declares, they question the corporate social responsibility that Nestlé boasts of, but, above all, they entail a violation of the Collective Agreement and of Dominican laws, and discriminate against the labor organization. Communication failure? On the contrary, Nestlé’s message is loud and clear: the best union is no union.