10 June, 2010European unions urge Johnson Controls to respect the rights of workers to affiliate to the union of their choice at the Johnson Controls FINSA plant in Puebla, Mexico.
EUROPE/MEXICO: At a European Johnson Controls Trade Union Coordination meeting in Brussels on June 7, European unions adopted a resolution in support of Johnson Controls workers at the FINSA plant in Puebla, Mexico.
While welcoming the company's decision to agree to workers' demands for recognition of their preferred union, the Mexican Miners' Union, at the Johnson Controls Interiors plant in Puebla, the resolution calls on the company to extend the same right to workers at the FINSA plant.
"We are concerned that Johnson Controls has not been willing to meet with the independent coalition of workers at its FINSA plant, also in Puebla, and to reinstate workers who were unlawfully fired at the request of the union in that plant - a union that was not elected by the workers and has never allowed them to see their collective bargaining agreement," states the resolution.
"Workers' ability to choose their representatives, free from employer domination, is a right guaranteed by ILO Conventions 87 and 98. Johnson Controls must afford this right to all of its employees, including the workers at the FINSA plant."
The Johnson Controls management and the "ghost union" CROM, that controls the protection contract in the FINSA Puebla plant, have found out that workers have taken steps to affiliate to the Mexican Miners' Union (National Union of Mine & Metal Workers of the Mexican Republic-SNTMMSRM), an independent IMF affiliate in Mexico. The workers who are part of a Workers' Coalition and several activists supporting their struggle have been subjected to physical attacks, harassment, threats and intimidation by the CROM union.
Twenty four representatives of Johnson Controls workers and trade unions from Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Spain, France, Poland and Slovakia attended the European Metalworkers' Federation (EMF), the European Mine, Chemical and Energy Workers' Federation (EMCEF), European Trade Union Federation - Textiles, Clothing and Leather (ETUF-TCL) and UNI European JohnsonControls Trade Union Coordination meeting which adopted the resolution.
The full text can be seen here: