U.S. and Dutch unions are strengthening ties in a campaign to reverse the trend of stiffening anti-union attitudes. The campaign targets Royal Ahold NV, an Amsterdam-based corporation that owns supermarket chains in the United States and Europe. Ahold’s growth strategy seems aimed at undermining unions, if not eliminating them entirely, according to members of a delegation of Dutch trade unionists visiting the United States. A similar pattern is evident in Europe, says the trade union FNV’s special liaison to Ahold. A recent expansion of Ahold into Belgium saw the company employ legal loopholes to prevent unionisation of the new workers even though Belgium’s labour law is otherwise friendly to unions.
English: http://www.inthesetimes.com/working/entry/13936/european-style_union …
For more information, please contact the editor Jan Cremers, Amsterdam Institute for Advanced Labour Studies (AIAS) cbn-aias@uva.nl or the communications officer at the ETUI, Mariya Nikolova mnikolova@etui.org. For previous issues of the Collective bargaining newsletter please visit http://www.etui.org/E-Newsletters/Collective-bargaining-newsletter. You may find further information on the ETUI at www.etui.org, and on the AIAS at www.uva-aias.net.