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UNI Commerce has the proof that E.Land violated its own collective agreement when it proceeded with the mass dismissals of its non-regular workers. This concerns those workers, who were taken over when Carrefour sold its chain of hypermarkets to the Korean retailer.

The agreement, which was signed when Carrefour still owned E.Land's hypermarkets, is very clear. It protects all non-regular workers, with at least 18 month of service when the agreement was signed, against dismissal without a real cause.

A copy of this agreement was received at UNI Headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland today.

Instead of threatening the striking workers with riot police intervention, the Korean labour ministry should now take steps to ensure that E.Land respects both this agreement, and fair labour practices.

UNI asks ILO to intervene to protect the workers

In a letter to Mr Juan Somavia, Director General of the International Labour Organisation ILO, UNI calls for a swift intervention with the Korean government, to ensure that the human rights of the striking workers are respected.

-  Negotiations between the E.Land workers trade union and the management are continuing to resolve the conflict, even if so far without tangible results. We are, however, extremely concerned that the government will intervene violently to end the strike by ordering riot police to empty the premises, says UNI General Secretary Philip Jennings in the letter.

- I would therefore ask you to intervene rapidly with the Government of the Republic of Korea, urging the greatest restraint as to using the police, and instead to give their strong support to continuing efforts to resolve the issue with full concern for the workers' rights, fair labour practices, and consideration for the employment needs of these disadvantaged workers.

- Most workers involved in this strike are young women, supermarket and department store cashiers and sales assistants working under very precarious conditions. This gives a particularly strong and sensitive human rights dimension to this issue, which has also lead us to engage ourselves particularly strongly.