Members of UNITE at UK Cadbury are joining forces with fellow workers in Egypt by 'twinning' their unions to challenge human rights violations by Cadbury's parent company Mondelez International.
“We’re not sitting by and accepting dismal gum sales” says Mondelez CEO Irene Rosenfeld while refusing to acknowledge the human rights abuses when 5 union leaders were dismissed from its chewing gum factory in Alexandria, Egypt.“The IUF is not sitting by and accepting the arbitrary dismissal of union leaders for exercising their rights” says IUF General Secretary Ron Oswald.
Members of UNITE at UK Cadbury are joining forces with fellow workers in Egypt to challenge human rights violations by Cadbury’s parent company Mondelez International. On May 2-3 Unite hosted two sacked workers from the Alexandria Cadbury plant - Nasr Awad and Hussein Ahmad - who were among the 5 founding members of an independent union dismissed last year as part of the company’s drive to crush the union.
Called to testify last week before a UK parliamentary committee of enquiry, Kraft CEO Irene Rosenfeld failed to appear, even declining an offer to answer questions by video hookup. “Kraft declined to comment on Rosenfeld's whereabouts”, the UK Guardian reported on March 15.
Submitted by Pepsico Worker on Wed, 02/06/2010 - 13:45
Food and beverage workers organised in Polish IUF-affiliate Solidarnosc discussed organising strategies May 26-28 in Lodz, Poland. Workers representatives from a number of TNCs and Polish owned companies including Frito-Lay (Pepsico), Coca-Cola, Bahlsen, Mars, Cadbury, and Odra developed communication and planning capacities to grow union strength.
In the discussions, the rampant casualisation of the workforce, in some cases up to 50% of the workforce, was identified as one of the main obstacles to building union strength and serious violation of workers right to organise.
Anyone following the UK parliamentary enquiry into the takeover of Cadbury by Kraft could not help but conclude that Kraft was either less than truthful, or incompetent, or both, in its cynical manipulation of false hopes around the Cadbury Somerdale plant previously slated for closure (see Kraft on a Diet after the Cadbury Feast - How Many Union Jobs Lighter?).
News Release Kraft Foods Starts New Year 150 Million Pounds Lighter NORTHFIELD, IL (January 27, 2010) – A few years ago, Kraft Foods decided to lose a lot of weight.
Barring any last-minute surprises, Kraft, the world's second-largest food company, will swallow UK-based Cadbury. Barely a month after deriding Kraft as an "unfocused" conglomerate and declaring "There is no strategic, managerial operational or financial merit in combining with Kraft", Cadbury Chairman Roger Carr announced that the price was right. He praised Kraft for its commitment to "our heritage, values and people throughout the world"…and acknowledged the inevitability of job cuts.
As the OECD released its latest Employment Outlook, which foresees a total of 57 million people without jobs in the world's 30 richest countries next year, the battle heated up over the price of a takeover of UK-based confectionery company Cadbury by Kraft, the world's second largest food corporation.