News

For more than a year the Lithuanian Service Workers' Union and Rimi branch trade union have been negotiating with the company in order to achieve a collective agreement which would cover all the company's operations in Lithuania. Negotiations were prolonged due to an amendment of the Labour Code preventing the agreement from been signed already this summer, according to Pavelas Kaplevskis, chairman of the branch trade union. Mr. Kaplevskis also stated that "the Rimi management took the initiative to resume negotiations and when the new terms were negotiated we could finally sign the contract".

The Rimi trade union chairman further said: "We certainly have no complaints about Rimi management: they allowed us to come for negotiations during work time and we received significant help from them".



In the view of chairman of LPSDPS, Aleksandras Posochovas, the agreement was relatively easy to reach because Rimi is part of the multinational Ahold Group. Making reference to their close cooperation with its Latvian fellow union, who signed a collective agreement with Rimi last year, Alexandras said: “The international trade union movement, when the trade unions of various countries assist each other, allows for problem solutions in more sophisticated way".

First from left: Aleksandras Posochovas, LPSDPS

Rimi's good intention to establish good labour relations must be seen in stark contrast to local Lithuanian chains which are actively fighting trade unions denying workers their right to join a trade union and have collective bargaining.



UNI Europa Commerce wishes to congratulate its affiliates in the Baltic countries on the outstanding work they do and shares the hope of LPSDPS that the general situation in Lithuania may improve soon.



The agreement signed will cover around 3.000 RIMI employees in 65 shops all over Lithuania (22 towns)

Learn more about LPSDPS at: http://www.lpsdps.com/?ac=news2