Earlier this year, the union suspended its campaign for the first-ever wage negotiations at the factory when the company agreed to talks.

The demands put forward by the workers and their union are simple; annual wage indexation in accordance with inflation (obligatory under Russian labour law) and annual negotiations on an additional wage increase.

These demands are not new. Two years ago, hundreds of ice cream packers (all of them women, all of them former Unilever employees outsourced to an agency supplying exclusively to Unilever) struck for three days demanding a return to direct employment, recognition of their union and decent pay and conditions, including a real wage increase. Their slogan at the time was “A grand per shift”, i.e. 1000 roubles or 30 USD per 12-hour work day. The strike resulted the in the establishment of the NOVOPROF union and the return to direct employment of its members, but wages remain USD 23 per shift, far below the regional industrial standard.

Local union leader Lilia Nasreddinova condemns Unilever for “playing games with us”, adding: “They pretend to be socially responsible and willing to talk with us, but they repeatedly refuse our core demands. We are not going to tolerate this any longer”.

NOVOPROF and its local in Omsk have called on members to be ready for industrial action.

NOVOPROF Omsk local union committee members at the factory with placards reading “Indexation is not the same as a wage increase”, “We demand a real wage increase” and “You cheated, we called for action”.

The proposed pay cuts are truly disastrous. Losses for a traditional machine operator would start at some GBP 6,000 annually, or 17% of current base pay. Loss of shift premiums and other allowances and performance benefits for some workers would the income loss to over 29% of current negotiated pay levels. Other employees could lose up to nearly GBP 15,000 of their current pay packet or a total loss of 31%, of which 21% would be from base salary.

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The loss in pension benefits based on the management proposed change would be similarly catastrophic, coming on top of the 2012 changes to the UK pension scheme. With this new burden, employees face an increasingly uncertain future.

At the very last minute management agreed to modify its demand for an 8-hour/3 shift scheme, which would have some workers performing up to 6 consecutive 8-hour night shifts and 3 weeks without a meaningful break from work. In its place came a 12-hour scheme proposed by the union, but with no time for full discussion of the implications of the new arrangements or any of the company’s other demands.

Abandoning the proposed shift scheme was offered on condition that the union adopt a “neutral” position on the company’s entire proposal, whose pay, terms and conditions had to be accepted as a whole in order to allegedly secure the future of the site.  The union has consistently said it recognizes the need for flexibility and is open to negotiation but has run up against a stone wall. At the end of the extended consultation period, the company challenged the union’s “neutrality” and reverted to the original shift proposal! Unite responded that the union reserves the right to fully inform the members of the contents of the proposals and has no choice but to recommend rejection.

The company’s autocratic refusal to respond constructively to any of the union’s many proposals has been coupled to the insistence on removing some 30 employees – 14% of the current workforce – from the collectively bargained pay scheme by putting them on individual contracts with performance-based pay.

The union proposed to move from the current 39 hours to a 40-hour week, with increased flexibility on banked hours. The union offered a 3-year pay freeze for pre-2009 employees, with some adjustments to lessen pay inequality for the post-2009 employees hired on reduced pay. The company’s response was: “It’s not enough”, despite the cost savings.

The company won’t listen to, let alone bargain over, any of the union’s proposals and commitment to negotiate flexibility. Given the poisonous atmosphere created by management’s aggressive attitude, the company will have no difficulty filling its 40 proposed voluntary redundancies.

Unilever’s steadfast refusal to give meaningful consideration to the bargaining process, their veiled threats about the future of the site, and the unilateral decision to shrink the bargaining unit by putting a sizeable number of employees on individual contracts constitute a concerted attack on basic trade union rights, rights which Unilever claims to respect. Unilever’s insistence on unilaterally reclassifying jobs to eliminate accumulated skills, seniority and experience has already generated conflict and led to a strike in South Africa. The drastic cuts now unilaterally demanded at Purfleet will not be limited to that site.

Unite is planning to ballot for a full recommended rejection and will be preparing an appropriate response if the company continues to reject in practice rights it claims to respect in Unilever policy statements.

Negotiations at both Food Solutions and the tea factory deadlocked over wages, with FAWU demanding 10% and 9% increases, respectively, and the company offering no more than 6%.

At Unilever Food Solutions, according to FAWU, the company “downgraded the Canister Department and Label Operator positions. There have been two grades in both these sites, AO grade (Autonomous Operator) and UO grade (Universal Operator). Unilever has recently introduced a third layer of grade, the lowest grade called GO (General Operator). The introduction of this grade was discussed and the union objected since the GO’s were used to replace some of the AO grade employees. This then works the same as the Youth Wage Subsidy that we objected to as the federation. A common understanding could not be reached where finally the company forcefully implemented the new grading at R3500 which is on a lower pay scale than the others.

“Workers that were working as Label Operators and those in the Canister department were graded as AOs according to skill and job performed on those areas. The company has since gradually placed GO’s in the Canister department and in the place of the Label Operators. People that were working in these positions were reshuffled to other departments. Slowly these young GO’s will replace all the older members that are paid at better grades. At the end of the day they will be able to run the company with the most people at the very lowest paid grade. We should also bear in mind that this is the lowest paid division in all Unilever companies.”

Pietermaritzburg is not the first site where Unilever has recently attempted to unilaterally reclassify/downgrade classifications. FAWU is demanding that the company drop the scheme.

FAWU members at Pietermaritzburg showing support for the strike by FNV Bondgenoten workers outsourced to Sodexo in the Netherlands last year

They won recognition of their union NOVOPROF but since November 2013 Unilever management has resisted negotiating their wage demands. The union is demanding

• wage indexing for the official inflation rate as required by Russian law;
• a real wage increase that would improve living standards for the workers’ families;
• a signed agreement that wages should be raised annually.

Management has accepted some form of wage indexing but rejects the other demands, and insists that its meetings with NOVOPROF are only for “information and consultation” – not negotiation.

This left the union with no choice but to launch a public campaign. Workers – members and non-members – have signed a union petition in support of wage negotiations and recently reported for work wearing “I support the union’s demands” badges. The union actions have generated considerable attention in the local press and media.