STIBYS denounces current collective agreement with AB InBev Honduras

An interview with Carlos H. Reyes, president of STIBYS

On August 11, 2020 the IUF-affiliated Beverage and Related Industry Workers’ Union (STIBYS), denounced the collective agreement signed in 2017 with Cervecería Hondureña (Honduran Brewery that bottles AB InBev and Coca-Cola products) and sent the company the union’s demands for new negotiations aimed at reaching a new collective agreement.

After full consultations with its members the union executive issued a statement outlining the changes that needed to be introduced to articles in the old agreement. The statement was approved by all the union’s members.

STIBYS also delivered a letter to the president of AB InBev Honduras and El Salvador, Paola Bondy. The letter outlines the countless company violations of the 2017 collective agreement. It also shows the union’s willingness to find a fair balance in worker/employer relations.

In the letter, STIBYS expressed its deep concern about the massive employment of non-permanent or outsourced workers to carry out permanent and continuous jobs, the non-direct hiring of temporary workers and the failure to fill vacant positions with permanent workers.

STIBYS also regrets the withdrawal of customers from permanent delivery routes delivering instead to resellers, and the marketing of products at exaggeratedly low prices in supermarkets, resulting in unfair competition that seriously impacts workers’ livelihoods.

According to the union, the outsourcing and precarious employment processes implemented by Cervecería Hondureña (AB InBev) led to 884 jobs today being staffed by non-permanent workers.

For a long established union it is essential to restore permanent workers to these positions.

“There are two principal elements in the proposals made by the union: the protection of permanent employment that provides some job stability, and the protection of our union organization. There have been several attempts by the company to ignore us. In recent months, for example, we have been raising different agendas for dialogue and more than 90 percent of the issues were not resolved. Now we are entering a very delicate collective bargaining process. Yet we know that we can count on the support of our international organizations like IUF Latin America”, Carlos H. Reyes, told to IUF Latin America region.

Please see here the original news story in Spanish.