UNISON Support for Victimised Sodexo Workers, CGT and SEIU file complaints with the OECD‏

UNISON members working for Sodexo will be meeting fellow workers from Colombia and Peru later this month, in solidarity with their campaign against trade union rights abuses by the company.

French union CGT announced on Tuesday that they have requested a ruling from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) regarding the respect of union rights where

Sodexo, the French Service Group, is concerned in Colombia and the United States. A similar procedure has also been filed by the American union SEIU (Service Employees International Union).
http://www.seiu.org/2010/08/seiu-and-cgt-file-charges-with-the-oecd-against-sodexo-for-violating-workers-rights.php

“Union organizations are requesting from the OECD that it intervene and obtain the immediate reinstatement of those employees who lost their job because they were seeking to unionise”, stated the CGT in a press release. This action is but one element of a campaign for the defence of Sodexo’s workers’ rights, particularly in the United States and in Colombia, and has been supported by the local unions of the French Group that employs 355,000 people worldwide.

Several of Sodexo’s employees or ex-employees, American as well as Colombian, had come to Paris in early July to testify about the troubles they experienced while attempting to unionize, speaking of pressures and occasional lay-offs.

“At the plant where I previously worked, and a few days after joining a union, seven out of the eleven involved employees were fired”, said Manuel Martinez from Colombia.

Sodexo’s French Management had stated that if they became aware of “situations where people were laid-off because they joined a union, or because they sought to unionize, that would be penalised”.

.UNISON has been campaigning with the SEIU and CGT through the offices of the International Union of Food workers (IUF) to win the global agreement that will help protect these workers. As well as targeting Sodexo contracts in hospitals and schools in the UK UNISON delegates have been present at the shareholders meeting in Paris in February this year and at the press conference held in Paris with workers from Turkey, France, Colombia and the USA in July.

SEIU is now investigating the Sodexo bid for the prestigious catering contract for the Olympic Games in London, which is due to be awarded later this month.

UNISON is hosting the delegations of victimised workers from Colombia, USA and Peru who will be arriving in London on 23 August and taking part in an action on the 24th August to bring to light the company’s union rights abuses.