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Frito-Lay Dominicana is a PepsiCo subsidiary that operates in
Santo Domingo producing snacks. It has a history of marked
antiunionism and abuse against any workers who try to organize
themselves. Last week, the Union of Frito-Lay Dominicana Workers
(SINTRALAYDO) denounced a new antiunion attack by the
transnational corporation. This time the labor abuse was
compounded by gender abuse, as the target was a woman leader.
In
dialogue with
Sirel,
Alexander Mosquea, general secretary of
SINTRALAYDO, informed that it “was a minor argument that was
blown out of proportion and turned into an incident that
unleashed an attack against Ana Reynoso, one of
the leaders of our union.”
“The
company used an argument between workers to humiliate this union
leader in an effort to demoralize her, hurling a stream of
personal insults against her.”
“We
took the case to our organization’s Gender Committee because it
is not just an act of general discrimination, it involves gender
discrimination as well,” Mosquea said.
Ana
Reynoso has health problems that prevent her from
performing tasks on her feet and she has to follow a special
diet at meals. It was precisely at the company’s cafeteria that
the incident, which led to a complaint against this worker that
cost her hours of work and an unpleasant moment at the Labor
Prosecutor’s Office, took place.
Reynoso told
Sirel
that when she requested a change of menu due to her strict diet,
she was met with insults that incredibly enough turned into
threats of reporting her to the human resources manager.
“Something that should’ve been resolved internally ended up
before the Labor Prosecutor, because management persuaded the
worker with whom I had the incident to file a complaint against
me for ‘notorious misconduct.’ I lost several hours of work,
which I’m not getting paid for, and had to go through a really
unpleasant situation,” the union leader said.
For
Mosquea, the real issue behind this incident is an attack
against the union, and it is part of a systematic campaign by
Frito-Lay to discredit the organization and its
leaders, which is why the union is publicly denouncing this
situation.
“We
have the support of Rel-UITA (IUF Latin
America), which will be reporting these abuses that
unfortunately are normal in this company,” she concluded.
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