Mondelez

The US-based transnational snack foods company Mondelez has consistently refused to respond to communications from the IUF documenting evidence of company abuses. When Mondelez was asked to respond (indirectly) to the IUF by the Resource Center on Business and Human Rights, the company evaded the key issues and made no meaningful reference to international standards. 

Mondelez CEO Irene Rosenfeld has been granted a USD 10 million 'special equity award' of stock in the new company, less than three months after Mondelez was ripped out of the former Kraft Foods Inc.

In an open letter to CEO Irene Rosenfeld, IUF General Secretary Ron Oswald calls on Mondelez to reinstate union leaders dismissed in Tunisia and Egypt as a result of their activities in support of union members. The dismissals are human rights violations in breach of the OECD guidelines on multinational enterprises and the UN Guiding principles on Business and Human Rights.

"As expected, it's workers who are paying the price of the Kraft Foods split", IUF affiliate PRO-GE said in response to Mondelez' announcement, on 30 October, that the Jacobs coffee roasting facility in Vienna (Austria) would be closed. "Mondelez is simply continuing what has long been common practice at Kraft Foods: abandoning sustainable corporate policy in favor of short-term stock market gains."

IUF affiliates in Australia and New Zealand are fighting a Kraft edict that no wedding rings shall be worn in their factories. While food workers are accustomed to removing jewellery for food safety and health and safety reasons, the sacred wedding ring is normally exempt. But Kraft policy states if the rings can’t be removed, they must be cut off.  Food companies normally deal with the issue through the requirement to wear gloves or an x-ray sensitive adhesive band.

The long-announced split became official on October 2, but shareholders got a big surprise: it is Mondelez, not the new North American grocery company Kraft Foods Group (KRFT) which has inherited the former Kraft Foods Inc. enormous debt! All the debt has gone to Mondelez, where workers will be consigned to paying the interest charges in an organization driven by aggressive cost-cutting.