Belgium -Picket lines at IKEA -August 21, 2014

Transport workers have organised actions at several IKEA stores in the Netherlands and Belgium, distributing leaflets and asking customers to support a campaign against IKEA, which they accuse of social dumping. The Belgian transport trade union BTB and FNV Bondgenoten in the Netherlands claim that IKEA is bringing in cheap labour from eastern European countries to transport their products. The unions say that these workers have few rights, are paid far less than the going rate in Western Europe and are often forced to sleep in their trucks. The aim is to end the cat and mouse game between the unions and the transport companies doing the job ‘IKEA is responsible for its policy of organising social dumping’.

English: http://www.itfglobal.org/news-online/index.cfm/newsdetail/10822 

 

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.