Sweden's Handels extends its collective agreement to all 7-Eleven franchise stores

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Swedish commerce trade union Handels has gained collective agreement protection for all Seven Eleven employees in the country. In negotiations with the franchise provider Reitan Servicehandel Sverige AB, the union achieved higher wages, better employment and working conditions, a compensation for unsocial working hours and a proper holiday entitlement.

Tommy Tillgren, vice president of Sweden's UNI Commerce affiliated Handels, is pleased with the result: - Like in the Toys"R"Us case, Handels has been able to force a multinational retail giant to comply with the union's collective agreement, he says.

The company has agreed to change its franchise agreements so that the Handels collective agreement will be fully implemented by all franchisees. This will be done during the six first months next year.

The agreement that was negotiated by Handels brings major improvements for the country's 7-Eleven workers. The minimum wages that are set by the collective agreement will raise their incomes. In addition to the wage compensation for unsocial hours, the workers will now receive a higher holiday compensation than what is established by legislation. There will also be a paid parental leave, the right to absence for important family reasons and higher pay for long-time employees. The agreement will also bring improved social security provisions.

Over 30,000 stores worldwide

Seven-Eleven is a large multinational owned by Seven & I Holdings, a Japanese company created a year ago through a structural merger between leading supermarket retailer Ito-Yokado, convenience store chain Seven-Eleven and fast food chain Denny's, two companies where Ito-Yokado was the majority owner.

Established in 1927 in Texas in the United States, Seven-Eleven were the first to introduce a convenience store concept. Today, the retailer is owned by the Japanese Seven & I Holdings, which was formed by supermarket giant Ito-Yokado when it merged last year with its two subsidiaries Seven-Eleven and fast food chain Denny's.

Today, the Seven-Eleven chain consists of some 30,500 convenience stores, 11.500 of them are in Japan. The US Seven-Eleven network consists of close to 6,000 stores and other 'big' countries for the company are Taiwan with 4,200, Thailand with 3,500 and Korea with 1,200 stores. In Europe, Seven-Eleven can be found in Denmark (55 stores), Norway (105) and Sweden (71).

Seven-Eleven in Japan is very much in the forefront when it comes to integrating banking services into retail stores. There is an automatic teller machine in principle in each Seven-Eleven store, providing consumer banking services.