The IUF’s sister Global Union Federation the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) has released a report outlining serious abuses in the operations of one of the world’s major international logistics providers, XPO logistics. The report raises questions about the possible role played by some of XPO’s customers, amongst them some of the largest consumer goods companies in the world like Nestlé and Coca-Cola.
Over the past two years the IUF has been working with the ITF and the VNB, the Dutch road transport workers’ union foundation, to confront serious human rights abuses in the European road transport logistics supply chains of major transnational food and beverage corporations.
In Europe a complex and opaque system built on multiple levels of sub-contracting has led to truck drivers, often from Eastern Europe, Central Asia and South-East Asia working exclusively in Western Europe paid poverty wages and forced to live for months in their trucks. It is a business model rife with exploitation and corruption. It is also one that raises serious road safety issues as drivers are often forced to break regulations that govern their working and driving time
To date two companies have acknowledged the need for action and in 2020 both Unilever and Danone have started pilot projects with the IUF, ITF, and VNB.
The IUF is raising these systemic abuses in their European road transport logistics supply chains with other major food and beverage transnational companies to persuade more companies to join this effort to reform a business model that, in its current form, guarantees exploitation and corruption.
