NNF strengthens its commitment to an International Agreement with Danish Crown

At the Congress of the Danish Food Workers Union (Aalborg, 25-28 September 2012), union president Ole Wehlast announced that union pressure for an international agreement with Danish Crown would increase.

The company continues to resist negotiating an agreement with the IUF over trade union rights in their operations. Talks with Danish Crown broke down in 2011 when they decided to issue a CSR policy instead.

“The management of Danish Crown might as well get used to it. If they want to operate around the globe, we will follow them – around the globe”, Ole Wehlast said.

He slammed the company for exploitation of underpaid eastern European workers in Germany. It has recently been revealed that Danish Crown uses the services of a labour broker in Germany who had been convicted of fraud. See IUF report here.

With respect to the massive pressure on prices and wages in the Danish and European meat industry due to massive exploitation of migrant workers on short-term, low-wage contracts, Ole Wehlast had this to say to his members:

“We should not just talk about the importance of political lobbying to ministers and sister organizations outside Denmark. We also need to do something about it. This also applies to international cooperation between workers in companies.”