Trade unions and management at the Delhaize retail chain met again in Zellik on Tuesday. The meeting, the monthly ordinary works council, once again did not yield any breakthrough in the file concerning the plans to privatize the 128 Belgian stores under own management. That’s what the unions said afterwards.
The meeting had started after 9 o’clock in the morning. At around 11:45 a.m., the secretaries and delegates of the three union families came out. There is not much to report, previous promises were repeated, Jan De Weghe of ABVVV-BBTK stated afterwards. “It is obvious that they are not prepared to consult,” said the union secretary. “They don’t want to ‘bog’ a millimeter or change anything. Point on the line.”
Same with Wilson Wellens of ACLVB. “It was a disappointment.” The management continues to push through its own plans, he denounced. “Very paternalistic”, he describes it, because according to him the management just keeps saying that this is the right plan.
According to Wellens, the management had a document with them, an addendum to the contract within the framework of the franchising. But it says, for example, “no employment guarantees”. There is also no room for the franchisee’s signature in the document, he added. A “legal empty box”. “This creates so much frustration that people get angry.” The Flemish Christian servants union did not want to comment on the talks afterwards.
In the morning, about thirty employees from Delhaize’s distribution center in Zellik (Asse), near Brussels, came to show solidarity with the store employees, but also to express their own concerns. “We want guarantees, logistics at risk”, they chanted several times.
When the shops are taken over by independent operators, the management guarantees the retention of wages and working conditions for the 9,000 employees involved, but the unions have serious doubts about this.
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