Multinational retailers criticised at ILO meeting in Prague

Companies don't register working hours:
Multinational retailers criticised at ILO meeting in Prague

Many multinational retailers in the Czech Republic don't keep correct working hours registers. Too often, this is done on purpose, to avoid having to pay overtime compensations. Labour inspection officials even suspect that some companies tamper with these documents before they are being submitted for control, if so requested.

Renata Burianova and Alexander Leiner (second and third from left) represented the Czech commercial workers at an ILO meeting on social dialogue in retail and wholesale trade, earlier this week in Prague. Highly critical comments were made about the behaviour of many multinationals, who seem to forget their social responsibility when entering Europe's new market economies. There are positive exceptions, though, most of which are not surprisingly companies who have a developed social dialogue also with UNI Commerce.

An ILO workshop in the Czech capital Prague earlier this week brought together the social partners in commerce as well as government authorities. They discussed how the fast expanding commerce multinationals could be integrated in the social dialogue and labour relations structures. Still, many of these companies have failed to join the employers' association and some are not even prepared to negotiate collective agreements. This was strongly condemned not only by the trade union representatives, but also by employers and by high level government representatives.

Alexander Leiner, president of UNI Commerce affiliated trade union OSPO, listed some of the main problems that workers have encountered with their new multinational employers. They include:

Extreme demands on flexibility,
The chaining of time limited work contracts,
Too much overtime work, including non-paid overtime,
Company refusal to negotiate collective agreements or enter into social dialogue,
Pressure on trade union activists and sympathisers to denounce union membership.

The correct players

Although employment and working conditions are far from satisfactory in most parts of multinational commerce, there are enterprises which are engaged in social dialogue. In his intervention, Alexander Leiner mentioned some of the leading companies, which enjoy correct relations with their workers and their trade union. These include Ahold, Carrefour, Edeka, Metro-Makro and Tesco, he said.

Surprisingly, the list of 'problem' companies include many multinationals, which behave in a socially responsible way towards their workers in their home countries. UNI Commerce is working together with OSPO, and other affiliates, to rectify this situation.

The social dialogue in the Czech Republic is well developed, with good relations between OSPO and the commerce employers' association. Speaking at the ILO meeting, Jan Furstenborg of UNI Commerce stressed that also those multinational traders who are not yet part of this dialogue should join the employers' association and fully adhere to labour legislation and collective agreement provisions.

EuroCommerce, which was represented at the meeting by its social affairs director Christelle Maes, and UNI Commerce have invited the Czech social partners to be present at the next European social dialogue session for commerce, in Brussels on 23 May this year.