Human Rights Group Says European Companies Violate U.S. Workers’ Rights
September 4, 2010 0 Comments
New York City, New York, United States (AHN) – A new Human Rights Watch report accuses about a dozen European corporations of labor violations against American workers that would not be allowed under their own countries’ laws.
The report says corporate directors intimidate American workers from joining unions and violate international workplace standards.
The multinational corporations listed in the report include Britain’s Tesco and G4S, Germany’s T-Mobile and DHL, France’s Sodexo and Saint-Gobain, Norway’s Kongsberg Automotive and the Netherlands’ Gamma Holding.
Many of the companies named in the report issued statements denying the allegations.
Supermarket chain Tesco’s statement said the Human Rights Watch report was “completely untrue.” The company said all of its employees are free to join trade unions.
Human Rights Watch, a nonprofit organization that seeks to defend human rights, based its report on employee interviews and documents from legal proceedings.
“The U.S. needs to close the loopholes in the country’s woefully inadequate laws to protect workers, including reforms embodied in the Employee Free Choice Act,” said Arvind Ganesan, director of the business and human rights program at Human Rights Watch. “The U.S. labor law system is characterized by long delays, weak penalties and one-sided employer access to staff inside the workplace.”
The Employee Free Choice Act is a bill that has been proposed in Congress that would make it easier for workers to join unions. It would allow a majority of voting workers to decide whether a union represents them instead of a majority of all the workers.
The violations reported by Human Rights Watch include forcing workers into “captive audience” meetings to hear anti-union messages, prohibiting union advocates from speaking with workers, threatening retaliation if workers form unions, threatening to fire workers who strike or even publicly support unions and spying on employee organizers.
Human Rights Watch officials said the labor violations were ironic because each of the corporations is based in countries whose laws strictly forbid the kind of behavior done by their management staff in the United States.
“Even self-proclaimed progressive companies can and do take full advantage of weak US laws to stifle freedom of association,” Ganesan said.
Among the companies singled out in the report was food services giant Sodexo, the world’s 22nd biggest corporation.
The 2.2-million member Service Employees International Union joined in the criticism of Sodexo with a statement that said, “Sodexo pays its workers in the United States as little as $7.50 an hour and does not offer affordable health care options to its food service and similar employees. Two-thirds of Sodexo’s non-managerial employees in the United States do not have coverage under the medical insurance plans offered by the company.”
Other allegations in the Human Rights Watch report include:
• T-Mobile characterized “talking about rights” by employees as dangerous activity to be reported immediately to management;
• DHL’s management threatened and discriminated against workers who tried to organize;
• Tesco’s management ordered workers not to communicate among themselves about unions;
• Sodexo threatened, interrogated and fired workers who tried to form a union;
• The Dutch Gamma Holding company hired permanent replacements, in violation of international standards but not of U.S. law, to take the jobs of workers who exercised the right to strike.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch recommended that the European Union more closely monitor companies under its jurisdiction to ensure they follow international labor standards when they operate abroad.
The report also recommended “stronger oversight by European headquarters of U.S. managers’ practices; stronger standards-setting and complaint mechanisms by international organizations.”
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