Positive Result at Nestl� El Salvador - Conflict Ends in Negotiated Solution

Posted to the IUF website 08-Jul-2003

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The IUF had earlier requested solidarity (click here to for details: Nestl� El Salvador - Union Rights Under Attack) with our affiliate in El Salvador, the Sindicato de Empresa de Trabajadores Nestl� S.A. (SETNESSA). The union organizes workers at Nestl�'s instant coffee plant in Ilopango, where employees were informed on April 8 that the plant would be closed at the end of the month due to a production transfer. Management announced at the same time that it would pay employees two months salary in addition to the minimum required by national law, and refused to negotiate when the union requested that the terms of the collective agreement be respected through the end of the year, when it would expire.

Rather than negotiate, Nestl� closed the factory gates, which houses the workers' union office, and stated that if the workers did not individually sign their agreement to the two months' salary offer, they would forfeit even that. Charges were then brought against the union in response to their occupation of the factory. To the union, occupation was a necessary step to give workers continuing access to the union office, from where they continued their campaign for a negotiated conclusion.

The IUF Latin American regional secretariat launched a vigorous campaign denouncing Nestl�'s arrogance and calling on the company to negotiate. The general secretariat mobilized international support and denounced Nestl�'s position of making strategic decisions which effect employment and working conditions at international level while rejecting corporate responsibility at that level for global labour relations.

It appears that in large part the pressure generated by the international campaign succeeded in pressing local management to finally enter into meaningful negotiations with the union. As a result, on June 30 SETNESSA reached an agreement with the company which meets the essential demands the union has campaigned for throughout. Workers are to receive payments based on length of time worked, up to a maximum of 20 months for twenty years of service, with an additional three months' salary going to all workers and a lump sum payment of USD 75,000 to be evenly distributed to all 35 union members who persisted in the struggle.

The company has agreed that all charges against the union stemming from the occupation of the union office in the factory will be dropped.