IUF
Uniting Food, Farm and Hotel Workers World-Wide
Financial Crime and Corporate Vandalism Threaten Thousands of Parmalat Workers' Jobs
Posted to the IUF website 31-Dec-2003Share this article.
In the last decade Parmalat was converted from a small family-owned dairy company in northern Italy to a global agribusiness giant employing 36,400 workers in 30 countries. Its frenzied global acquisition spree gave Parmalat sprawling dairy, juice and bakery operations stretching from Australia through the USA and Canada to Argentina and Brazil, while it became the largest dairy company in Italy.
This expansion was not accompanied by fresh investments in the companies acquired, but rather by concentration and rationalization, which translated into plant closures and job losses. More often than not, particularly outside Europe, the arrival of Parmalat has brought with it deterioration in labour relations. Where unions sought to organize Parmalat facilities, they were often met with hostility and forceful attempts to keep them out.
It has now been revealed that these acquisitions were funded by non-existent assets supposedly residing in offshore banking accounts owned by a series of opaque holding companies. Italy�s notoriously weak standards for corporate accounting and governance have been further weakened in recent years by corrupt legislation designed to protect the shady financial manipulations of the media empire of Italian Prime Minister Berlusconi.
While Parmalat has been declared insolvent and its former CEO Calisto Tanzi is under arrest for questioning, a newly enacted Italian law will allow the company protection from its creditors for 120 days while it prepares a reorganization plan. However it is widely anticipated that many if not all of the companies acquired in its global buying spree will eventually be sold or liquidated, thereby threatening the jobs, working conditions and trade union rights of its employees.
IUF general secretary Ron Oswald commenting on the current uncertainty stated emphatically that, "The protection of workers' jobs and livelihoods must be given absolute priority over other interests. Workers must not again become the victims of gross mismanagement and alleged criminal activity on the part of those who were charged with running this company. The IUF will campaign vigorously for protection for our members wherever Parmalat currently operates around the world. Workers' rights and workers' interests must be paramount in any financial arrangements or acquisitions that follow yet another outrageous example of corporate vandalism."
The IUF has for several years been concerned with the labour relations conduct of Parmalat, in particular as it expanded outside of Italy. IUF affiliates representing Parmalat workers from 8 countries on 4 continents met at the CAW Education Centre in Port Elgin in the province of Ontario, Canada, on September 27-28, 2003 to discuss strategies and agree on a common position within Parmalat.
Participants agreed that the company's labour relations performance is a global problem calling for a global response founded on collective union strength and solidarity. A strategy and action programme was adopted which includes recommendations for further work and the commitment by affiliates to actively support the IUF's efforts to engage with Parmalat in order to secure minimum standards for trade union rights and recognition.
The current crisis affecting Parmalat adds extreme urgency to this programme by making the defence of jobs, working conditions and basic union rights of all affected workers a high priority for the IUF and its affiliates. This is equally true whether the operations are sold to other companies or if they remain within a restructured Parmalat or a successor company.