Re: Swedes break anti-union wall at Toys 'R' Us

[malecki@xxxxxxxxxx (Robert Malecki)]

Hi the Toys are us people have closed down in Sweden. After losing the
battle below they claimed bankruptcy shortly after. Good!

malecki in exile...

>
>**Swedes break anti-union wall at Toys 'R' Us**
>
>(Reprinted from the May 11, 1996 issue of the People's
>Weekly World. May be reprinted or reposted with PWW credit.
>For subscription information see below)
>
>World Combined Sources
>
>With more than a little help from friends, the unionized
>workers at Toys "R" Us stores in three Swedish cities have
>won what is believed to be the first union contract anywhere
>with the aggressively anti-union, multi-national retail
>chain.
>
>It took a strike of nearly three months and solid support
>from other Swedish unionists, the general public, and unions
>in Norway and Denmark, and from delegates to the World
>Congress of the international secretariat of technical and
>commercial workers unions.
>
>Sweden's Handels union had signed up most of the workers at
>the retailer's new stores in Goteborg, Malmo and Stockholm,
>but was getting nowhere in its attempts to bargain a
>contract.
>
>Then it discovered the company was forcing workers to sign a
>staff handbook containing many rules that violated Swedish
>labor law. The union struck and called a boycott of the
>stores. The stores' aisles were empty "despite efforts ...
>to entice customers in with all sorts of special offers."
>
>Other unions in Sweden, Norway and Denmark stopped
>deliveries, blocked financial transactions, stopped the
>stores from being cleaned. The company threatened to pull
>out of Sweden. Politicians and the press attacked the union
>for threatening jobs.
>
>Last Aug. 2 "a deal was signed giving the union most of what
>it wanted" and the strike was over. Two weeks later, the
>heads of Toys "R" Us operations in Denmark signed a similar
>contract "without any conflict."
>##30##
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