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Pregnant mothers must tell their bosses immediately that they are expecting a child, otherwise they risk losing their maternity benefits. They must also work at least six months after the maternity leave is over, otherwise they have to pay back the benefits that they have received, and make do with Switzerland's notoriously poor social security based payments.

- Migros' anti-union and unsocial approach takes the company into a dead-end street, comments Andreas Rieger (right) who leads the union's tertiary sector work. Here he is with Vasco Pedrina, whom he is designated to succeed later this year as President of Unia.

These are just two examples of the downhill that the workers of Swiss retail giant Migros will experience now that their employer has signed a so-called 'collective agreement' with itself. UNI Commerce affiliate Unia, Switzerland's largest trade union, was closed out of negotiations by the company, which tries to picture itself as something of a do-good public service institution.

It is no wonder that Migros has not informed the personnel about the loss of benefits brought by this so-called collective agreement. "The collective agreement has no support among the workers", says Robert Schwarzer, head of the Unia retail sector.

Migros lost six union busting court cases

Switzerland's leading retailer Migros has been engaged in a systematic union busting operation for the last five years. In October, the company lost its sixth court case against Unia, having hindered the union from distributing leaflets to workers outside its shops.

Referring to Migros' membership in the Business Social Conscience Initiative BSCI, Unia's Andreas Rieger says that the company is acting in stark contrast with the commitments that this entails: "What Migros demands from all suppliers at home and abroad, they also have to respect with regard to the trade unions in Switzerland".

Migros plays with the credibility of BSCI

UNI Commerce will contact BSCI and ask for discussions concerning the Migros case. If the company does not normalise its relations with Unia and the Swiss trade union movement, it will hurt the credibility of this corporate social responsibility initiative. A situation where a leading retailer demands that suppliers in developing countries respect the fundamental workers' and trade union rights, but denies them from its own personnel in a country like Switzerland, is not acceptable. Instead it indicates that Migros is applying the BSCI code for window dressing purposes, afraid of customer reactions if it cannot prove that it monitors its supply chain.

It is not only mothers and families with small children that are hit hard by the so-called collective agreement that Migros has concocted. Many Migros workers can come to realise that their working time can be raised up to 43 hours per week, without wage compensation. The holiday periods will not be agreed between the employer and workers anymore, but imposed by management, which is set to complicate the harmonisation of working life and family responsibilities.

Compared with other leading Swiss retailers, the wages at Migros are several hundred Swiss Francs (1 Swiss Franc = 0.80 US Dollar) behind, and the company has constantly refused to discuss general wage increases. "Also next year, there will be many employees at Migros who will not even get a compensation for the price inflation", says Catherine Laubscher, responsible in Unia's retail trade sector.

Migros imports off-the-clock work to Europe

According to Unia, Migros employees must now work 59 minutes for free every week. Will Migros now really want to become known as the company which imported the so-called 'off-the-clock' concept to Europe?

Migros and its president Claude Hauser have been on a collision course with fundamental international labour standards ever since Unia was formed a few years ago. The company and its top manager used this Swiss union merger as an excuse for trying to create a union-free environment in the company. From the beginning, Migros refused to negotiate in good faith with the union, and the present 'collective agreement' which it concluded with itself is a continuation of this process.

What makes Migros' behaviour against its workers and their union particularly questionable is that the company operates in the home country of the International Labour Organisation ILO.