Lidl once again criticised for bad employer behaviour in Sweden

Lidl is once again criticised in Sweden for its bad employer performance. This time, it is warehouse workers in Halmstad and their local trade union who say that the company is misusing labour legislation. The German hard discounter routinely terminates employment contracts just before the six month test periods run out, and then takes in new people.

- I think it is ugly to throw out people after six months regardless of whether they have worked well or not, a former employee tells Hallandsposten, the local newspaper.

Most workers at the Halmstad warehouse have 25 hour working weeks. Many would want to have more hours. The former Lidl employee says that the company expects workers to stay at the job until everything has been done, even if it means doing more hours. The next day can then be shorter and workers are expected to end their working day when everything has been done. And as the weekly working hours are only 25, extra hours are paid at a flat rate and there is no overtime compensation.

Hallandsposten tells that 56 of the 70 workers at the Lidl warehouse are members of UNI Commerce affiliate Handels. The union has a collective agreement with the German hard discounter, in contrast to the situation at its German home market.

- Our victory against Toys"R"Us a few years ago was important, says Elsie Mann, the local Handels representative, to the newspaper. - After this, no foreign chain stores have tried to avoid signing collective agreements.

The U.S. toy retailer did in fact try to refuse its workers collective agreement protection and was finally driven out of the whole of Scandinavia after a forceful trade union campaign. Lidl, which is a notoriously brutal and anti-union employer wherever it can, has apparently learned from the Toys"R"Us affair and therefore adapts to the Nordic way of handling labour relations.

- One can probably say that they do what they have to do, but not more, says Elsie Mann to Hallandsposten.