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21 May, 2007
At a spirited rally at the Rotterdam portion of Unilever’s AGM on 15 May, ICEM Dutch affiliate FNV Bondgenoten issued a stern warning to the giant food and chemicals concern: focus more on long term stability and the concerns of all stakeholders, rather than on a current call by investors to restructure for quick profits.
Union members and their allies, namely the 40,000-member Association of Shareholders, a collection of institutional and individual shareholders, called on the company to resist the break-up, the closure of certain businesses, or the selling-off to private equity funds, or other market capital funds.
ICEM's presence at Rotterdam rally, including Chemical officer Kemal Ozkan and ICEM Vice-President Ben Roodhuizen (centre)
The rally preceded Unilever’s general meeting at Rotterdam’s World Trade Centre. The following day, 16 May, the company held the London portion of its annual meeting, at which time Mike Treschow was installed as Unilever chairman. Treschow is a noted master of retrenchments, having previously maximized quick profits at the expense of jobs at Ericsson telecom and Electrolux.
FNV Bondgenoten warned that the strategy of creating excessive shareholder value at Unilever is now playing too large a role. “I fear that in the short term, Unilever will become prey to activist hedge funds,” stated Bondgenoten President Henk van der Kolk. “In the eyes of these funds, Unilever is a company from which more profit can be squeezed.”
“Unilever has always been a company with a good name, a company that has looked out for the interests of its workers,” van der Kolk added. “Now workers are only seen as a cost factor. The less you have, the better. That now appears to be the thinking at Unilever.”
FNV Bondgenoten President Henk van der Kolk
On 1 June, the union will submit a work plan to senior management of Unilever. FNV Bondgenoten is asking shareholders to support that plan, which couples social responsibility with curtailment of the power of shareholders. Jobs and job security are high on its agenda, as is upcoming collective bargaining in The Netherlands. Bondgenoten said that the first part of the work plan applies to Dutch operations of the multinational, but that the plan could also be applied more broadly to the company’s 200,000 workers worldwide.
Also speaking at the rally were a member of parliament and workers from Mumbai, India, which are members of the Hindustan Lever Employees Union. Their situation depicts Unilever at its worst. In order to avoid social dialogue with that union, which is an affiliate of the International Union of Food & Allied Workers’ Association (IUF), management sold the operation to a shell company in order to avoid its lawful social obligations.