Read this article in:
3 February, 2006
A torch-lit parade and protest in the Belgian city of Gent against the retaliatory measures of paper company Stora Enso has the full endorsement of Brussels-based ICEM, the Global Union Federation representing pulp and paper trade unions across the world.
The parade and protest, to be held beginning at 19h00 on Tuesday, 7 February, is sponsored by the Gent-Dendermonde Region of ICEM affiliate De Algemene Centrale ABVV (La Centrale Générale FGTB). The march will convene in front of ABBV’s regional headquarters at Vrijdagmarkt (Friday Market), 9000 Gent, and after assembly, will proceed for one hour through the city streets of Gent.
The retaliation involves the sudden dismissal of two ABVV shop stewards at Stora Enso’s Langerbrugge paper mill on 30 December. Mill Management executed legal papers for their dismissal and had constables deliver the termination notices to their homes.
The union protested directly to Stora Enso, and alerted the Finnish-Swedish paper company that it had 30 days to reinstate the pair to their rightful jobs, or it would set the Belgian legal process in play. The company, responding through its law firm, said that if ABVV/FGTB filed legal action for compensatory damages for the two, it would sue ABVV/FGTB for business losses connected to a short, but legal strike last fall that the union and two other trade unions conducted.
Such a lawsuit against a union is unprecedented and currently not possible in Belgian courts due to the legal definition of a trade union. But right-wing political parties inside Belgium are pushing for a legislative debate on holding unions responsible for financial restitution during a work stoppage, and Stora Enso has now entered that debate.
Tuesday’s event will showcase the necessity to strengthen workplace protections for on-the-job trade union leaders. And Stora Enso’s anti-worker practices at Langerbrugge will be shown as the shameful example of anti-social behaviour in Belgium.
“This march is intended for the citizens and politicians of Belgium and to alert them that current law protecting shop stewards is inadequate,” said Katrien Van der Heist, regional Secretary for De Algemene Centrale. “It is clear to us that Langerbrugge management holds our two shop stewards responsible for the strike, and this is illegal.”
But under Belgian law, a trade union’s only legal recourse is to seek a fine against the company and compensation for the individuals, but not reinstatement. “This is something that must change,” added Van Der Heist. “We must make the law stricter and force companies to take back union representatives who are fired for carrying out their legitimate duties.”
The sackings came as a result of a 12-day strike by 330 workers at the Langerbrugger newsprint and publication papers mill from 28 October to 8 November, 2005. During that strike, mill management used coercive tactics by petitioning a Gent court to impose a €1,000-a-day fine on the union and its representatives for each worker that did not cross picket lines. The company also publicly declared that its concessionary proposals would only get worse each day that the strike lasted. (Further information on that strike can be found at /?id=19&doc=1482 &la=EN and /?id=19&doc=1485&la=EN.)
From left: CEP President Brian Payne, ABVV Regional Secretary Katrien Van der Helst,and FGTB/ABVV National Federal Secretary Bruno Bachely.
Stora Enso also took indirect action against two ABVV shop stewards of cleaning contractor ACS. They informed the contractor that the stewards could not work inside Langerbrugge under threat of ACS losing the cleaning contract. The two women shop stewards had stopped by picket lines during the strike to express solidarity.
The torch-lit march through the streets of Gent comes 12 days after the world’s largest pulp, paper and paperboard company locked out 600 members of ICEM affiliate Communications, Energy, Paperworkers (CEP) Union of Canada at a mill in Port Hawkesbury, Nova Scotia. (For information on the lockout, see /?id=77&doc=1635&la=EN.) Brian Payne, president of CEP, was in Brussels yesterday and not only pledged a presence at the parade, but also pledged a continued link of solidarity and communication between CEP Local 972 in Nova Scotia and Belgian ABVV-FGTB.