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22 September, 2008
In a three-year-long case that had involvement by the ICEM and the Flint Glass Industry Council of US-based United Steelworkers (USW), a Peruvian labour court ordered job reinstatements for six union leaders of Sindicato de Trabajadores de Owens Illinois Perú.
The six, along with five others, were sacked on 18 October 2005 for protesting the unilateral takeover of a factory canteen by Peldar, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the American company Owens-Illinois.
The union has a clause in its collective bargaining agreement giving it the right to hire the concessionaire, with a portion of the food-service proceeds used for trade union activities.
The company’s unilateral abrogation of that clause was done after the sacked leaders had built union membership up at the glass plant. Five of the 11 were recalled days after 18 October. The ICEM launched an initial inquiry into the matter with the company in early November 2005, and USW’s Flint Glass Industry Chairman Tim Tuttle took the matter up personally with Owens-Illinois Chairman Steve McCracken at the company’s headquarters in Toledo, Ohio.
Despite this, the fate of the six union leaders lingered before Peruvian judicial bodies since early 2006.
Finally, in early September, a judgement was issued stating that the company discriminated against the trade union leaders. It read that Owens-Illinois “does not have just cause and the real motivation was to affect the structure of the organised union” and the “exercise of their union activities.”
Owens-Illinois has, to date, not reinstated the six, apparently choosing instead to appeal the decision for further judicial review.
Behind a Peruvian national centre, the Confederación General de Trabajadores del Perú (CGTP), and a pro-worker Peruvian NGO, Programa Laboral De Desarrolla (PLADES), a complaint had been filed at the ILO’s Committee on Freedom of Association this past June. This month’s judiciary ruling in Peru fully noted the ILO complaint on violation of Conventions 87 and 98.
The ICEM calls on Owens-Illinois to drop its appeal, and to immediately reinstate the six union leaders of Sindicato de Trabajadores de Owens Illinois Perú, per this month’s judicial ruling.