Urgent Appeal for Solidarity – French company Auchan victimises trade unionists
By Andriej Movchan
Workers in the French company AUCHAN in Ukraine are facing victimisation for exposing the violation of workers rights
AUCHAN, the French giant, opened its first mall in Kyiv at the end of March 2008, covering 15 thousand square metres with over 500 workers. However, the European logo of the company didn’t mean European working conditions - claim its employees.
A shift in the mall lasts from 16 up to 20 hours per day. Workers who don’t want to agree to these hours are threatened with dismissal.
“We were forced to organize ourselves in a trade union because of an attitude of the French and Ukrainian management to the staff” - says Aleksander Ruzhinskyi, a representative of the trade union Defence of Labour - “It was a scandal that a working day lasts not 8, but 20 hours. Sometimes you had to work literally the entire twenty-four hours. Apart from that there was a whole mass of other problems. For example, the company was supposed to provide workers with dinners. But till the time of the official opening of the mall they didn’t serve it. Then, they started to serve a very poor meal, for which you need to pay extra money”.
According to Ruzhinskyi, many workers were employed by AUCHAN without a valid labour book or insurance card. As a result – they were denied their legal rights as Ukrainian workers’. Students were being employed only for one working day, which lasts 15 hours.
“An outrageous accident happened a few months ago. A student working at a machine for cutting cheese, cut off his four fingers. After that, 100 hryvnyas (14 Euro) was put in his pocket and they led him out of the company suggesting that he probably “fell down on bottles” – recalls the chairman of the trade union.
After that the workers decided to create a trade union. Colleagues from the “METRO Cash&Carry” supermarket shared their experience in this area of work, as Defence of Labour “union was established there after a successful struggle for recognition rights. An AUCHAN female worker, who wishes to remain anonymous in fear of retaliation, says:
“In the beginning there were 6 of us. Soon new workers began to sign in, the union started to grow. But after a few days we already felt strong pressure on us, although we had not even yet expressed our concerns to the employer. One of the union members was forced to resign for their job, and other four - to write a statement of withdrawal from the union”.Two weeks after establishing the union also Aleksander Ryzhinskyi was sacked: “They accused me of not working 20 hours, but only 16. All these hours I was at work, but people, looking into my eyes, signed the protocol, that I wasn’t there… HR-manager, Olga Vovk, showed the greatest enthusiasm in the fight against the trade union”. Now the Defence of Labour is fighting a legal case for the re-instatement of Aleksander in court.
Unfortunately, Mrs. Vovk refuses to make a statement on this question, using recommendations of the management as an excuse. In the central AUCHAN office they also refused to comment. The Defence of Labour has managed to establish that the total silence on this matter is recommended by the French management.
“Trade unions are usually associated with some industrial giants. Therefore, the mobilization of workers of the service industry was a surprise for many people” - says the leader of the Kyiv committee of Defence of Labour “, Oleg Vernik. He claims that the reason for this should can be found in the 1990s - “ Then the heavy industry was collapsing, a job in a factory was not respected and it was poorly paid. And youth went to the trade and service industry. Today these people are starting to unite to defend their rights”- claims Viernik.
Send faxes with protests to Kyiv Auchan centre. It will help!
fax: +380 44 585 99 35;
fax: +380 44 391 38 29;
phone: +380 44 391 38 25
