13 July, 2015An expanding coalition of unions is demanding that Ansell live up to its slogan Ansell Protects.
The Australia and U.S. headquartered Ansell manufactures gloves, condoms and specialty suits.
“Ansell says it’s a global leader in protection solutions. That’s a bitter irony in light of how it’s harming workers around the world,” stated IndustriALL Assistant General Secretary Fernando Lopes.
Ansell is currently fighting a war of attrition in court against three hundred poor, primarily female Sri Lankan workers the company terminated for going on strike at its one of its glove factories.
“The terminated workers and their families are suffering extreme financial and emotional distress. Many have trouble finding other jobs and believe they’ve been blacklisted. Two have already died without receiving justice,” stated TCFUA National Secretary Michele O’Neil.
“We say no to dirty Ansell gloves, sullied by a record of extreme worker abuse,” added CFMEU National President Tony Maher.
Ansell terminated workers in mass in Sri Lanka as part of a multi-step process in which it’s attacked the workers’ local branch of FTZGSEU and replaced it with a company union that has management appointed “employees’ representatives”.
Ansell used similar tactics in Malaysia. It singled out ten leaders of the NUECMRP union for dismissal following a picket that hundreds of Ansell’s Malaysian workers participated in. Now it’s fighting the workers’ attempt to receive justice by dragging out the case in court.
Recently Ansell took its harmful practices to Brazil. It acquired Hércules Equipamentos de Protecao, where there had been positive relations between the company and the workers’ union CNTV-CUT.
That all changed when Ansell arrived. Ansell attempted to undermine the labour agreement at the plant, and the workers have responded with a series of strikes.
“We demand that Ansell stop harming workers and instead work in good faith with those workers’ freely chosen representatives,” said Edgar Romney, Secretary Treasurer of Workers United, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. “Our coalition will not rest until Ansell lives up to its slogan.”