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UNI Commerce and the Metro Group have reached a common understanding about the principles for securing workers rights in the company's cash and carry markets in Turkey. The common approach aims at establishing 'normal' labour relations at the Metro Cash & Carry workplaces. This will hopefully now put an end to more than three years of conflict.

Sadik Özben did not know that his union as well as UNI and ver.di were being betrayed by the Metro management, for the second time. Read the unbelievable story about how the German multinational tried to cement its union busting results while making believe they would reinstate workers rights:  Metro deceives UNI and ver.di, buys Turkish trade union, threatens workers with dismissal if they don't join Sadik Özben, president of UNI Commerce affiliate Tez-Koop-Is has been fighting hard for the rights of Metro's Turkish workers. The close cooperation with UNI Commerce and German affiliate ver.di will continue, to make sure that the understanding reached with the Düsseldorf management will be correctly implemented. After that, union building and preparing for a future collective agreement must start once again.

Tez-Koop-Is, the Turkish UNI Commerce affiliate, has retained an important membership in the company even if management action over the years has pushed it under the country's 50 per cent recognition limit. With Friday's agreement, the union will get a new chance to build up its presence and to negotiate collective agreements on behalf of its members.

The common understanding was reached in discussions with senior Metro Group and Metro Cash & Carry management, at company headquarters in Düsseldorf. UNI Commerce was represented by Jan Furstenborg and Alex Rüdig, and German affiliate ver.di by the head of its retail trade sector, Ulrich Dalibor.

 

Ulrich Dalibor of ver.di and Alex Rüdig of UNI Commerce were pleased after the Friday discussions. Hopefully, the understanding reached at Metro headquarters in Düsseldorf will finally set labour relations in Turkey on a course towards social dialogue, partnership and a collective agreement.

In the Düsseldorf negotiations, the company also confirmed its policy of global respect for workers' rights.

UNI Commerce and the Metro Group will now discuss with the Turkish social partners about how the common understanding should be put in practice and how constructive relations can be re-established. UNI Commerce will continue its close cooperation with German affiliate ver.di and its retail trade sector, which has played a key role in bringing the deal about.